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SUICIDE 



it $oem. 



SUICIDE 



a |)o*m, 



IN FOUR PARTS, 



ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES. 



BY HARRIET COPE. 



LONDON: 



PRINTED BY H. BRYER, BRIDGE-STREET, 

AND SOLD BY F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, NO. 62. ST. PAUL* 8 
CHURCH-YARD. 

1815, 



PREFACE. 



The following, lines which I am apprehen- 
sive will be considered very deficient in 
pathos and beauty, as well as in the more 
lofty and sublime features of true poetry, 
are committed to the press with great 
diffidence ; the subject is so complicated, 
so awful and horrible, that a combination 
of talents and learning could alone succeed 
in pourtraying its dreadful and distressing 
consequences. 

It is so difficult to conceive how the 
mind can be wrought up to so high a 



VI 



pitch of false enthusiasm, as it necessarily 
must be, before any one can reconcile 
himself to the commission of the unnatural 
and abominable crime of self-murder ; a 
crime for which there can be no expiation, 
and from which the soul instinctively revolts; 
that many persons are of opinion that a 
total dereliction of the mental faculties must 
precede the rash deed. 

That every act of desperation and wicked- 
ness is a species of madness, cannot be 
denied ; it is, however, an indisputable but 
melancholy fact, that numerous instances 
may be adduced of persons, in full possession 
of their mental faculties, and weak mis- 
guided erring reason, having perpetrated 
cool, deliberate, and self-collected suicide. 

I am really shocked to add that I have 
frequently heard young men of talents 



vn 



and education argue most strenuously and 
eloquently in favor of self destruction, 
whose minds have been stored with a fund 
of fallacious arguments, to shew that man 
has a right over his own life, and that 
there are circumstances under which it is 
a disgrace to live. These mischievous and 
poisonous doctrines have triost probably 
been imbibed from the publications of that 
sect of philosophers of the German school, 
who call themselves the Illuminati, and 
who have disseminated sentiments the most 
inimical, not only to the dictates of reli- 
gion and morality, but to the precepts of 
benevolence, humanity, and compassion; in- 
deed, that universal and unbounded philan- 
thropy, which wishes t© promote the happi- 
ness of its fellow creatures, is so completely 
under the influence of religion, that if the 
root be destroyed, the branches, which are 
the moral virtues, must inevitably perish ; 



Viil 



and if Scepticism and .Atheism were to gain 
ground in the world, so would mischief- 
sin — guilt, and consequently sorrow and 
misery increase with the most rapid and 
desolating strides. 

The story of Werter is of the most dan- 
gerous and immoral tendency ; the hero 
conceives an affection for a married woman, 
and contrary to the dictates of religion, 
morality, and honor, suffers his passion to 
gain so great an ascendancy over his reason, 
that he at length falls into despair, and, 
because he cannot obtain for himself the 
wife of his friend, puts a period to his 
existence by which noble, magnanimous, and 
disinterested action he involves the object of 
his love in never-ending woe ; for that woe 
which arises from the melancholy reflection 
of having, however innocently and invo- 
luntarily, caused the death of a fellow 



IX 



creature, must feed upon reflection, and can 
never be consumed. What pusillanimous, 
cowardly, and selfish conduct ! he had lived 
in habits of intimacy and friendliness with 
Charlotte and her husband, and must 
therefore have been well aware of the 
misery in which his premature and violent 
death would involve her; but his sensibility 
was so exquisite, his despair for the impossi- 
bility of the attainment of his own selfish 
wishes so great, that the wound he was 
about voluntarily to inflict in the bosom of 
another, — of her whom he so ardently loved, 
had not the least weight or consideration 
with him. Yet the fate of the desponding, 
the selfish, and rash Werter, is so patheti- 
cally and elegantly delineated ; his character 
rendered so amiable and interesting ; his 
irreligious and violent act clothed in a garb 
so seductive, flowery, and alluring, that his 
crime is actually held up to admiration 



instead of being consigned to that abhor- 
rence and odium, which in every point of 
view it unquestionably merits. 

Love, — unrequited, or disappointed love, is 
frequently assigned as the cause of self- 
annihilation ; but as real and genuine love 
is a noble, refined, and generous sentiment, 
and can only take possession of minds of sen- 
sibility and refinement ; how can we recon- 
cile, with this feeling, that conduct which 
must, under all circumstances, involve the 
object beloved in anguish so insupport- 
able ; the more especially as the enthusiasm 
of love exalts the object of its adoration into 
a faultless, nay, perfect creature; and who 
would not rather make any sacrifice, than 
voluntarily inflict, from selfish motives, a 
wound in the bosom the most beloved ? 

Surely if there yvere no superior consi- 



XI 



derations, no day of retribution, no tribunal 
before which we must all appear to give 
an account of our actions, all but ignoble 
and selfish minds, must shrink with horror 
from the idea of destroying the peace of 
even one fellow creature ; but the desolation 
and misery occasioned by the cowardly act 
of Suicide, is generally of vast extent, as the 
happiness of many, is for the most part com- 
bined with the life, or, at all events," the 
violent death of one. 

Madame de Stael in her " Reflections sur 
le Suicide" ingenuously and candidly ex- 
presses her regret for the dangerous senti- 
ments she had propagated in a former work 
" L'Influence des Passions/' in which she 
held up to admiration, under certain adverse 
and depressing circumstances, the awful and 
abominable crime of self-murder : probably 
she published those reflections by way of 



Xll 



reparation and atonement for the cruel and 
mischievous tendency of her former publica- 
tion. In the latter, however, she makes use 
of many irrefragable arguments to prove 
that it is the duty of a Christian, under all 
circumstances, to endure life. With due de- 
ference to the literary acquirements, highly 
cultivated understanding, and brilliant talents 
of that distinguished lady, a real Christian 
with the glorious hopes of immortality ever 
full in his view, cannot for one moment 
entertain the thought of self-annihilation ; 
because the sorrows, perplexities, and tribu- 
lations which destroy the peace and sour the 
temper of the Atheist and the Sceotic, exalt 
and sublime his spirit; in all the mutable 
events of his life, however distressing and 
severe, he sees the hand of God, and although, 
from the nature of his earthly frame, he 
may bitterly and severely feel his afflictions 
and disappointments, he yet cheerfully re- 



Xlli 



signs his own blind and limited will to the 
guidance and judgment of Him who cannot 
err, — he remembers that the longest life is 
short— that every thing on earth is preca- 
rious — that there is " another and a better 
world ;" his bosom fortified and mailed with 
these consolatory and delightful reflections, 
with the blessed promise that his God will 
never leave him nor forsake him ; irradiating 
and cheering his mind ; he serenely smiles 
in the midst of danger, in the heaviest and 
most trying calamities his faith and obedience 
are unshaken ; he knows that all things work 
together for good ; and when the burden 
presses too heavily for his frail and imperfect 
nature to support, he prays his Creator to 
grant him an increase of strength and sub- 
mission, 

The distress which has frequently been 
excited in my mind from having witnessed 



XIV 



the anguish and desolation, the horror and 
exceeding misery which have been thrown 
into families from one of its branches having, 
in a moment of rashness and despair, yielded 
to the suggestions of his evil genius, and 
destroyed that fabric which God himself 
had condescended to raise, first incited in 
me the idea of composing a poem on the 
dreadful and terrific subject, and were I 
endowed with talents equal to my feelings 
on the occasion, I should have succeeded 
better, in delineating the selfishness of that 
sorrow, which by emancipating itself from 
mortal sufferings, spreads so wide a circle 
of misery for others, by involving relatives 
and friends in an inextricable abyss of grief 
and anguish, and have taught the drooping 
and desponding to rejoice, and instead of 
immolating themselves at the dark and 
gloomy shrine of despair, with " all their 
imperfections on their heads/' not only to 



XV 



endure, but actually enjoy lite, by contri- 
buting to the felicity and happiness of those, 
who by their precipitation and violence they 
would have involved in the bitterest and 
most unavailing sorrow; for when friends 
thus part, " 'tis the survivor dies." 

Although I am well aware that my Poem 
is unadorned by the aid of imagery and 
allegory, and destitute of that sublimity and 
beauty which constitute the true spirit of 
poetry, — that it has, at best, nothing but 
truth and simplicity to recommend it, yet I 
am indifferent to the censure and sarcasm 
of criticism, I mean the criticism of pro- 
fessed Critics and Reviewers, who pour se 
profusely from their cup of vitriol, and so 
sparingly from their cup of oil; for as I 
cannot be attacked on the score of irre- 
ligion or immorality, I am invulnerable to 
the severest shafts that may be levelled at 



X**i 



me on any other score, because I am al- 
ready apprehensive that my censors will find 
little to approve and much to condemn. 

London, Nov. 1814. 



PART I. 



Or if thou covet death as utmost end 
Of misery, so thinking to evade 
The penalty pronounced, doubt not but God 
Hath wiselier arm'd his vengeful ire than so 
To be forestall' d: much more I fear lest death 
So snatch'd will not exempt us from the pain 
We are by doom to pay : rather such acts 
Of contumacy will provoke the Highest 
To make death in us live . . . . 

MILTON. 



I } 



&8 



Ye, who the cup o* bitter sorrow drain! 
Ye souls of feeling, most alive to pain! 
Ye whose fine nerves are exquisitely wrought j 
Or thrilled to ecstacy, or sorrow fraught ; 
Ye through whose frames those sweet vibrations steal a 
That sensate warmth — that pure and holy zeal — 
Which for another's sorrow pours the tear, 
And as your own, another's joy holds dear; 
Whom cold indifference with her torpid fa#e, 
And all her chilling; apathetic race, 

* 2 



I 



Flies, with averted, and disdainful eye-, 
Deaf to the supplication pray'r, or sigh* 

Ye to whom gracious, but mysterious heaven,, 
With tenfold feeling, tenfold woe has given 5 
Ye noble few, ye spirits all benign, 
Ye finer essence of the pow'r divine, 
! ye who feel to madness, yet sustain, 
By faith upheld, ev'ry degree of pain 5 
Whose tow'ring hopes, expanded, and sublime, 
On wing seraphic, dart beyond this clime ; 
Who blushing bow before the chastening rod 
That weans from earth, and leads ye up to God; 
Ye noble souls! tried, tortur'd, torn, and rent, 
Like the poor reed — by furious whirlwinds bent; 
Bow'd by the blast, who suffer, weep, and pray 
That he who tries, will be your rock and stay, 



Who still possess your minds, and smile at grief, 
When resignation lends its sweet relief. 

Pity those spirits! sensate like your own— 
Those fine strung 1 nerves, of quick, elastic tone, 
Those souls acute, all sentiment, all mind, 
But not like yours, by faith's pure beam rehVd? 
O pity those ! to whom it is not given — 
To spring from earth, and soar on hope to heaven; 
Who, by the storms of life's rude tempest beat, 
Can find no port, no haven, for retreat, 
Whose hopes and fears involved in sorrow's gloom 
Forget the promis'd rest beyond the tomb, 
Forget tho' long and dreary be the road, 
Tho' dark the path with thorns and briars strew'd, 
Though phantom upon phantom frowning rise, 
It points to scenes of bliss beyond the skies, 



Strangers on earth and pilgrims of a day 
What boots how rough and weary be the way ? 
The way that leads where saints and seraphs rest, 
And where the faithful shall at last be blest. 

O! might my humble muse or ardent pray'r 
From one sad breast avert that dire despair, 
That gives the heart to sink unnerv'd deprest, 
When by afflictions or by wrongs opprest, 
Around the soul its pois'nous fangs entwines, 
And health, and peace, and reason undermines. 
That dire despair that prompts th' impious hand 
To rise against great nature's first command, 
All unprepared, uncall'd to rush on death, 
Ere he who gave recalls the fleeting breath, 
God's precious gift with scorn t' annihilate, 
And rush from finite to a lasting state. 



Happy, thrice happy if my unvarnish'd page 
The sorrows of one suffering breast assuage — 
One sad bewilder'd mind a moment calm, 
Heal agonizing thought by hope's sweet balm ; 
Bid one half wav'rins: on destruction's brink 
Lay hold on faith and from his purpose shrink. 

O might I shew that in this vale of tears 5 
This wilderness o'errun by thorns and tares 5 
This land of shadows fugitive and fleet, 
There yet springs up one flow'r of odour sweet : 

One flow'r of beauteous bloom which never dies, 

/ 
Whose spreading branches reach beyond the skies } 

Beneath whose influence fade both tares and weeds, 

Crush'd the contagion of their baleful seeds, 

O ! tis a flow'r pre-eminently bright, 

Increasing still in fragrance and delight y 



Sov'reign in life, as Gilead's holy balm 5 

The wounds of pois'nous tares and thorns to calm,™ 

For every ill which mortal can endure 

This plant delicious yields a potent cure, 

Soft as the dews on Lebanon's high head — 

Pleasant as rills from barren rocks that sped, 

And present blessings richly it bestows, 

And joys immortal in reversion shows; — 

With rapturous beam it opes the visual ray ? 

And fills the soul with an unclouded day, 

A day all golden, smiling, soft, arid clear} 

A day celestial gladdens all its sphere. 

The soul it wings to where enthron'd on high 

Th' Eternal dwells whilst seraphs round him fly. 

'Tis God's own promise, " He whose mind on me 

V Is stay'd in peace,— shall never weary be; 



9 

" Sooner the mountains and the hills shall move, 

" Than from the faithful I withdraw my lore $ 

" I will refresh them with my glory bright^ 

" And turn their darkness to exceeding light $ 

" And tho' my face awhile in wrath I hide., 

cc The meek and humble I again will guide ; 

" I will restore them to my holy mount, 

" And bid them taste again my sacred fount.'* 

Art thou a wanderer on life's rugged coast, 
By howling storms and driving tempests tost ? 
Of every social tie on earth bereft, 
No kindred mind to breathe sweet comfort left ? 
Tho' round the world in vain thou seek a friend 
Whose soul with thine in unison might blend ; 
The victim still of treach'ry's artful smile, 
Which fawns upon thee only to beguile. 



10 

By wiles infernal gains thy fond belief, 
Then stabs thy peace, and laughing mocks thy grief; 
Like the fell serpent whose sw r eet honied breath 
Conceal'd behind the sting of sin and death ? 
Tho' Calumny's base tongue thy fame assail, 
Tho' busy whisperers point th' envenom'd tale, 
Exulting see thy life's best joys o'er cast, 
And thou subdu'd beneath the lurid blast. — 
Remember him who smiles not to deceive, 
! turn to him, he shall thy cares relieve ; 
Above thy foes he shall exalt thy mind, 
From fell despair thy trembling nerves unbind; 
Patience shall calm thy soul with her mild pow'r, 
And hope re-blossom like the spring's sweet flow'r ; 
And thou shalt see destruction on thy foes, 
They who against thee in dark malice rosej 



11 

They who with envy's scorpion touch were nVd, 
Who 'gainst thy innocence and peace consprr'd; 
They shall at last be brought to open shame, 
And loud reproach be fasten d on their name. 
Hast thou no friend on earth, I turn thine eyes 
To him whose throne is fix'd beyond tjie skies; 
The friend of angels will become thy friend, 
And with a look of pity o'er thee bend, 
If on his tender love thy soul but rest, 
Clinging devoutly to his gracious breast. 
O ! if thou humbly his great name adore ; 
If thy meek spirit to his footstool soar, 
An inward blessing passing thought or shew, 
He on thy tortur'd bosom will bestow; 
A faithful pilot, He thy bark will steer, 
Where no dark storms or tempests rude appear $ 



12 



Where calumny's and treachery's envious smile 
Shall never more thy innocence beguile ; 
Thee to the heaven of heavens in peace convey, 
And give to triumph over life's sad day^ — 
And thou shalt backward look with smiles of joy, 
And bask in rapture pure without alloy. 
Keep then the promis'd happiness in view; 
Rest thou on God, nor fleeting dreams pursue; 
So shalt thou smile at danger's roughest mien, 
'Mid glooms and horrors, calm, content, serene ; 
Guarded and fenced by that almighty rock, 
Tempests may howl, but thou their force shalt mock; 
Secure, that tho' thy earthly hopes be riven, 
'Tis but to waft thy bark in peace to heav'n : 
The great Jehovah bruises but to heal ; 
Tries, but to prove thy love, thy faith, and zeal. 



13 

As the poor Dove who flutt'ring round and round, 
No spot to rest her wearied pinions found ; 
In vain with panting bosom did she fly, 
One waste of waters canopied by sky, 
Where'er she turn'd, which ever way she fled, 
Still mock'd her hopes—still fill'd with direst dread: 
Glad to return, she seeks again the bark, 
And rests once more in favor' d Noah's ark : 
Thus seeking rest around a treach'rous world, 
Pleasure's gay banner by sweet hope unfurl'd, 
In vain we struggle, vainly beat our wings, 
Grief follows grief, and woe on woe still springs; 
Soon are we wreck' d upon the dang'rous coast, 
The banner riv'n, and Hope's fair visions lost,— 
Like the poor Dove we raise th' exploring eye, 
And one vast wilderness can only spy: 



14 



Yet does our Father,— he the God of povrr — 
True to his word, — an everlasting tower, — 
Firmer tnan rocks, created by his hand, — 
Still guide his followers from th' engulphing sand;, 
Smiles when he sees them seek on earth for rest, 
And calls them back to his all-gracious breast; 
Who more than perfect Job awhile chastis'd — 
Who more aggriev'd, insulted, and despis'd, 
The mightiest man of all the mighty east; 
Boundless the treasures he had long possest, 
And sons and daughters grac'd his ample board, 
The favor'd servant of th' all-favoring Lord; 
Who yet allowed him to be sorely tried 
More than was ever mortal man beside j 
His sons and daughters all, in one sad day, 
Cut off from life,— all snatch'd, alas ! away. 



15 

His vast possessions given io the wind 9 
And not a wreck or atom left behind; 
And he, tho' perfect, tastes a sad reverse, 
And groans beneath his Maker's heavy cnrse : 
Touched by disease, and all its racking pains? 
The galling cup of misery he drains. 
" When I lie down (says he) to close my eyes, 
<c Weary I toss, and long for time to rise; 
" My flesh with worms and clods of dust is clothed, 
" All broke my skin, and I a thing most loath'd ; 
" In vain I hope that sleep may give me rest, 
" Terrific visions scare my tortur'd breast ; 
" In vain th' Almighty's mercy do I crave; 
H Cast from his love — I hasten to the grave.' ' 
His friends who might have brought a kind relief. 
And pour'd the balm of sympathetic grief, 



16 



Reproach instead, and mock him in his woe* 
And cruel malice and revilings shew. 



His wife indignant bids him curse his God 
Who gave him thus to Satan's vengeful rod; 
" Thy faith, integrity dost still retain ! 
" Thou loathsome object of disease and pain? 
** Trust him no more, but curse his name and die :" 
But Job soon silenc'd with a wise reply: 
And though th' Almighty did with sorrows vex, 
And soul and body grievously perplex, 
Yet nought his trust or confidence could shake, 
Or make him his integrity forsake ; 
With wounded spirit to his God he cries, 
And turns towards Him his supplicating eyes, 
iC Altho' his wisdom should my body slay, 
" Still will I trust him,— still for mercy pray." 



17 

'Till the Almighty with compassion hears 
His faithful and afflicted servant's pray'rs, 
And bending from the whirlwind's fearful cloud, 
Graciously spoke in voice severe and loud; 
Sublimely grand — proclaims his sov'reign pow'r, 
And shews that man's the creature of an hour; 
Form'd by his hand, dependent on his will, 
Or bath'd in bliss, or tasting direst ill; 
Breathing his breath, a clod compos'd of earth, 
From nothing, by his pleasure woke to birth; 
Form'd but the wond'rous artist to admire, 
Who with his spirit did the work inspire ; 
The faithful Job to happiness restores, 
And blessings more abundant on him pours ; 
And the bruis'd reed, which to and fro was driv'n, 
Has two fold treasures to his bosom giv'n ; 

c 



18 



With sons and daughters he again is blest™ 
Again the mightiest of the mighty east. 
Ye hapless children of misfortune, say, — * 
If ye like Job have seen affliction's day; 
Like him, by every galling woe chastis'd; 
Like him, aggriev'dy insulted, and despis'd; 
Like his, your vast possessions snatch' d away, 
Those ye best loved all dead in one sad day ? 
0! has God's hand on you so heavy borne, — 
If so, like him, ye well indeed may mourn ; 
Then, too, like him, your sufferings sustain, 
And your integrity as firm maintain; 
Hold fast your trust, and patient persevere* 
Till your Creator dry the falling tear; 
If fervently ye pray, and calm endure* 
For every sorrow he will lend a cure. 



19 

Does poverty with cold and freezing" air, 
Still haunt thy steps with petrifying glare ; 
Seek thou the treasures of a noble, mind, 
From every vulgar mean pursuit refin'd ; 
Rich in thyself, above the power of fate 
Thou'lt shine most nobly in an adverse state. 
Are talents, genius, fancy, to thee given? — 
What would' st thou more, of all indulgent heav'n- 
The costly banquet, and the rich attire, 
Can they excite in thee one low desire -,— 
Alas! not theirs true happiness to bring, 
,r Tis from a nobler source content must spring. 

Lamented Chatterton, his faith foregoes, 
No anchor left, whereon he could repose ; 
He, when the chilling blasts around him rave 3 
Rushes uncaird — unsummoned, to the grave — 

c 2 



20 

Blest by imagination's brilliant fire, — 

Genius to tune most sweet the polish'd lyre — 

In numbers eloquent, devout, and bland — 

Of power the soul to soften, and expand ; 

But his repining spirit could not brook 

That wealth, and power, should genius overlook ; 

Panting with expectation of loud fame, 

Ambition's hopes his high raised views enflame ; 

Forward he darted on excursive wing, 

And heard the world its poet's praises sing 5 

Saw rank and splendor, adoration pay, 

And crown with roses, every golden day : 

Illusive dream! that mock'd him for awhile, — 

And sapp'd his judgment by its shadowy smile ; 

Till rous'd by poverty's heart chilling stare, 

His high built hopes gave way to black despair, 



21 

And he, the guilty bowl, O! horror, drains, 
To seek a Lethe for life's troublous pains. 

Ill fated youth! why banish from thy breast 
That radiant faith that animates th' opprest :— 
Ah! why did scepticism wild succeed 
The early tenets of thy Christian creed! 
And raise a war within thy frantic soul, 
That burst the bonds of reason's calm controul ; 
Thou, who, in earlier days with angel tongue — 
God's mercy, love, and justice, sweetly sung, 
In numbers all melodious and divine, 
Where resignation, praise, submission, shine. 

What tho' cold penury with chilling blast, 
Her torpid, numbing mantle, o^er thee cast \ 



22 



What thtT neglect her galling poison shed, 
Thy fire represt, and on thy vitals fed—- 
Tho' no benignant, no supporting voice, 
With cordial promise, bade thy soul rejoice— <■ 
No friendly, generous, warm, admiring hand, 
Was stretch'd, thy youthful genius to expand ; 
Thy opening talents in the bud to shield, 
And guide thy footsteps o'er the classic field,-— 

Thy spirit watch, absorbed in fond delight, 

* 
As learning shed its intellectual light- 
Yet, had religion still maintained her ground, 
Within thy breast a refuge had been found, 
A rock, a tower, a safe-guard of defence, 
Beyond weak man, in all his pride of sense: 
Ah ! then neglected, slighted, scorned, opprest, 
By the unfeeling wounded, and deprest; 



23' 

High hadst thou soar'd above the vulgar crowd, 
Ci The little great," the affluent, mean, and proud, 
And fame, tho' tardy, might thy age have crowned, 
And thou been honor 'd, courted, and renown' d, 
And brightest laurels twined their sportive boughs, 
To decorate th' immortal poet's brows. 
Hears not his wandering shade his mother's groan, 
Heart-piercing sighs, and melancholy moan — 
Ah ! hears he not, her shriek of sorrow wild,— 
The burst of anguish for her murder'd child — 
Ah ! sees he not her cheek with terror pale, 
Frozen her life-blood, by the dreadful tale — 
Her venerable tresses scattered wide, 
Her darling hope destroyed by suicide, 

What ! that fine nerve with feeling running o'er— 

> 
That sensate heart, that bled at every pore : 



u 



Impatient only of his own distress, — 

Could sacrifice a mother's happiness; 

He for himself so exquisitely felt, 

That his proud soul no other's woe could melt. 

Whilst the sweet poet of the mountain wild — 
That highly rapt, enthusiastic child — 
That son of genius, whose transcendant soul, 
O'er nature's grand, terrific scenes, would roll; 
Who, when the tempest o'er the desert raved, 
Or the loud blast the huge branch bending waved, 
Felt his rapt spirit, and his lofty mind, 
Ascend to him who rides upon the wind — 
Like hapless Chatterton, unknown, and poor, 
Doomed to hard toil, in poverty obscure- 
Like him, no friend, whose kind indulgent hand, 
His comprehensive genius might expand ; 



25 

None, who would snatch from poverty's cold arms, 
To point with graces, all his innate charms; 
Yet, did the muses o'er his labour smile, 
And many an hour, with ecstacy beguile, 
Whilst his great soul opprest by cares and woes, 
Springs to his God for comfort and repose: 
<c I long (says he) to lay my weary head 
(( Upon my mother earth's all quiet bed, 
" Where c virtue sole exists,' I long to go, 
u From all the empty bustle here below ; 
" Yet is religion my firm rock and stay, 
" My strong supporter through life's dreary way ; 
" My pleasure from the sacred promise springs, 
a The revelation of the King of Kings : 
" Where hunger, pain, and thirst shall be no more, 
c Nor sun, nor light, nor heat, upoii them pour $ 



26 



The holy Lamb with tender care shall feed, 
And to the living founts of waters lead: 
God from their eyes shall wipe away all tears, 
For there nor death shall come, nor doubts, nor fears; 
Therefore before God's holy throne they stand, 
And day and night observe his high command 
Within his temple, and he that sitteth on the throne, 
The first, the last, the everlasting one,— 
He shall amongst the holy circle dwell, 
Whilst loud hozannas in the chorus swell." 
Thus by religion's holy voice upheld, 
With conscious rectitude his bosom swelled ; 
Pursued by poverty's cold haggard form, 
Secure he stands amidst the howling storm; 
Nor could her chilly, icy hand arrest, 
The genuine fire that glowed within his breast :— : 



0*5 



His daily labor the rough glebe to turn, 
And his coarse meal, with pain, alas ! to earn ; 
Yet his wild harp on Ayr's sweet banks he hung, 
And to the finest airs divinely strung ; 
The shaggy mountains, and the silvery flood, 
The heathy v allies, and the piny wood, 
But more the solemn sweepings of the wind, 
Awoke to rapture his impassioned mind ; 
And tho' his wayward passions quick and strong, 
Dazzled by fancy, often led him wrong; 
If devious pleasure turned his steps astraj, 
Sorrowing he turned him to fair virtue's way ; 
Confest his failings to the throne of Grace, 
Whilst the repentant tear bedewed his face : 
Clpse let compassion draw the pitying veil, 
Nor the sad frailties of his life reveal. 



Peace to the poet's dear departed shade ; 
Blest be the spot where his remains are laid ; 
Long Caledonia's grateful sons shall shed, 
Their sweetest incense o'er his hallowed bed, 
And many a tributary wreath shall twine, 
To grace the memory of the bard divine; 
To give to deathless and immortal fame, 
Their favorite Burns' belov'd and honor' d name 5 
Whilst his pure soul is now before God's throne, 
Tasting the promise that so sweetly shone ; 
Now hunger, pain, or thirst, he feels no more, 
Nor does the sun, nor heat upon him pour j 
Now does the Lamb his sainted spirit feed, 
And to the founts of living waters lead \ 
God from his eyes has wiped away all tears, 
And from his breast dispers'd all anxious fears: 



29 

If doom'd to live to suffer endless woe ; 

If doom'd no change, alas ! to undergo ; 

But here to dwell in sorrow, grief, and pain; 

Well might unhappy man shake off the chain ; 

Impatient, seek a more congenial clime, 

Better adapted to the soul sublime. 

Not such our fate, if death be slow, he's sure, 

For every ill, a never failing cure; 

Each passing day we're nearer to the tomb, 

Then why speed that, that will so surely come 

Ah ! why impetuous into darkness rush, 

And give our little isle with shame to blush. 

O ! why will man, to angels, heav'n ally'd, 
On things terrestrial, fix his hopes and pride ; — • 
On joys, that vanish as the dews of morn, 
Drunk by the thirsty sun from flow'r or thorn s 



30 

Passing' as feath'ry shadows in the sky, 

Which meet, disperse, and mock the garer's eye: 

Why let the nobler powers lethargic sleep, 

And sense alone its wakeful vigils keep, — 

Till all at once — as roaring torrents break, — 

Or sudden earthquakes, sleeping cities shake, — 

As yawning chasms open for their prey, 

And close th' unwary from the face of day ; 

So the poor wretch, whose joys to earth are bound, 

^y chains of bliss, fast fetter'd round and round; 

His every hope, and fond desire long fed — 

Feels the bolt burst o'er his astonish'd head; 

Th' impetuous whirlwind's sweeping blast destroys 

All his aerial, transitory, joys, — 

Plunges his radiant sun in endless night, 

Nor leaves one gleam his gloomy shade to light, — 



31 



Nought can compose the torture of his brain 9 
Where Chaos seems to hold perpetual reign : 
Ah ! to his God, did he but raise his eye — 
To him for consolation did he fly : 
Did faith's pure beam exalt him 'bove this world, 
Tho' every blessing from his head were hurl'd — 
Tho' not a wreck of earthly joy remain'd — 
Yet peace that passeth show might be obtain r dv 

Too oft no actual ill — some hope represt, 
Some cherish'd phantom lurking in the breast,— 
Some idol of the heart, pursu'd in vain, 
Turns ev'ry real blessing into pain : 
O ! has that noblest passion of the soul, 
With all its fascinations, o'er thee stole, — 
Has soft affection pure, refin'd, and chaste, 
The temple of thy virtuous bosom grac'd? 



32 

And has invidious fortune's cruel star, 
With thy fond wishes made perpetual war? 
Yet lenient time shall sooth, with healing balm, 
Cure thy sad wound, and all thy anguish calm; 
True, it is hard, when souls congenial meet, 
That adverse stars, their union should defeat; 
But, such the order of terrestrial things, 
The fate alike of peasants and of kings, — 
To few on earth 'tis giv'n their fate to chuse, 
Or realise their visionary views. 

Th' Italian bard so honored, lov'd, renown'd, 
Whose temples oft the poet's garland crown'd, 
Who oft was borne in gay triumphal car, 
Whilst loud applauses shook th' echoing air; 
Idol of Rome, who saw with proud delight, 
Her fav'rite son bedeck' d with laurels bright, — 



33 

With rapture heard concurring nations praise, 
And give to Petrarch's brow unfading bays, — 
She heard his name reverb' rate on the skies, 
And saw in clouds the perfum'd incense rise,— 
Saw glory's light around his forehead shine, 
Heard rival kings, princes, and states combine,— 
To load with honors and caresses due, 
The greatest statesman that the world e'er knew. 

Ah ! not alone did he, in plaintive verse, 
His love for Laura, and her charms rehearse, — 
Tho' the pure virtues of her angel mind, 
Glow'd in her mien, tho* ev'ry charm combin'd — 
To stamp perfection on her Jovely face, 
Whilst her fine form, display'd celestial grace j 
Tho' Petrarch's soul was lost in fond delight, 
When first he saw her, like a seraph bright, 

3> 



34 

Offering orisons to the heav'nly throne, 
Whilst in each look benignant fervor shone, 
As low she knelt before the hallow'd shrine, — 
Chanting sweet paeans to the pow'r divine,-— 
All innocence, all gratitude, and love, 
Like a fair spirit from the world above ; — 
And tho' his ardent and resistless flame, 
Has blended with his own fair Laura's name, 
Not his, to droop a martyr to his pain, 
And madman like, embrace the rankling chain,- 
More wise, in sweet retirement's shady vales, 
His wound he probes, and by devotion heals, — 
Reason's fair form, most fervently he wooes, 
And mild philosophy intent pursues, 
And tho' wild agony his brain possest — 
Tho' madd'ning tortures revel'd in his breast— 



35 

Tlio' many a night, when how I'd the angry blast, 
Over the desert rude, alone he past ; 
Raving, or to the moon, or sweeping wind,-— 
Of the sad passion that convulsed his mind ; 
Yet reason combats with the fiend Despair, 
And heav'n attentive hears his mental pray'r; 
The Being all supreme whom he adores,— r- 
Soothes ev'ry sense, and peace celestial pours. 

O ! had he languished in love's galling chain— 
The voluntary victim of its pain — 
Had black despair his noble mind consum'd, 
And his fine talents blighted and entomb'd — 
Or had he, like Britannia's sons deprest— 
Plung'd the dire weapon in his tortur'd breast- 
Then, not o'er nations had his fame been sprea* 
Nor radiant glory settled on his head,-^— 

D 2 



36 

Then his mild precepts ne'er had discord heal'd, 
Nor moral excellence his pen reveal' d — 
Then learning had her ablest champion lost, 
And science and philosophy their boast. 

But 0! Vaucluse, in thy delicious bow'rs. 
He seiz'd with rapture Time's too fast wing'd hours ; 
'Midst thy wild rocks and dark umbrageous woods — 
Thy murmuring fountains, and cool shVry floods — 
He nobly sought to calm his troubled breast, 
Nor scorn'd the blessings which he still posseat; 
There did his polish'd mind new strength acquire — 
There glow'd his genius with transcendant fire-^- 
There did his ardent soul devour the page 
Of classic poet and of ancient sage — 
There his own rich imagination wrought, 
And cloth'd with eloquence each brilliant thought — 



,37 

There he composed his works of truth sublime, 
The charm and admiration of his time, 
Where manly sense and mildest feelings reign, 
At once energic, noble, and humane, — 
And rescu'd from Oblivion's mould'ring hand, 
Records and fragments which unrivaird stand : — 
Removed from tumult, treach'ry, and deceit, 
Tranquil he liv'd within his calm retreat; 
Whilst emulous to share his soul's great pow'rs, — 
Courtiers and kings invite him from his bowers ; 
All seek his counsel, and with zeal contend, 
Who first should claim him as their country's friend, 
And still is Petrarch's great and noble name, 
Coupled with virtue and immortal fame. 

Tho* Laura's image oft across his soul,— 
In all ihe radiance of her beauty stole \ 



38 



Tho' to his mem'i y oft that morn recurr'd, 
When first her voice seraphic, sweet he heard ;■ — 
Pouring her soul in soft harmonious Strains, 
To him whose essence in her bosom reigns. — 
" At dead of night (says he) her shade appears, 
" My senses chills, and fills my eyes with tears ; 
" Conscious she seems of her resistless charms, 
" Smiles at my woe, and mocks my eager arms ; 
c< Trembling with agony, my couch 1 fly, 
" Long ere the dawn illumes the eastern sky — 
" Thro' the wild woods with hasty step 1 start, 
" Frenzy and anguish writhing round my heart; 
" Or the rude summit of the rock ascend; 
" But ah! where e'er my frantic way I bend/ 
« c My Laura follows— still her form I see — 
" Or issuing from some broken ruin'd tree — 



39 

* Or from the sources of some hidden spring— 
" Or 'gainst a craggy rock I see her cling! 
" Like a wild maniac I rove the plain, 
" Love in my heart, delirium in my brain." 

Yet with this mighty tempest in his breast, 
He struggled still, and still his mind possest ; — 
Low at Religion's ever healing shrine, 
He weeping knelt, and pray'd for aid divine ; 
She hears his pray'r, alleviates his grief, — 
And tranquil reason lends her kind relief: — 
* f Father of heav'n, O ! pity my lost state, 
" Nor let me longer struggle with my fate — 
Cl Nor longer waste my melancholy years, 
" Sharpening the dart which still my bosom tears- 
" Nor let this earthly and devouring flame, 
a Longer efface the glory of thy name 5 



40 

a 0! lend thy aid, thy heavn'ly light impart, 
" Point but the path of life, reclaim my heart, — 
u Dispel the cloud of love, unveil my eyes, 
" Exalt my grov'ling hopes beyond the skies, 
" ! God, who dy'dst upon the cross for me, 
u In pity raise my weary soul to thee/' 

Thus as he pours his pious fond behest, 
HeavVs glory opens on his tortur'd breast, 
Soothes his fierce anguish, lulls his grief to peace,— *■ 
And bade the tumult of his bosom cease, 
Calms his wild passion to a holy love, 
Such as immortal spirits feel above; — 
Oft as he wandered o'er delicious vales, 
And caught the perfume of the citron gales, — 
Or climb' d the steep and hoary mountain's brow, 
His spirit breath 'd the pure and mental vow, — 



41 

Nature's grand works enraptur'd he survey M, 
Whilst Contemplation, by her holy aid, 
His soul enflam'd with chaste and holy fires, 
And harmonised his restless wild desires,— 
From Nature up to Nature's God he soar'd, 
And all his perfect attributes ador'd, — 
Till hope celestial o'er the chaos stream'd, 
And with benignant mildness on him beam'd, 
And when his Laura from a world of care, 
Was call'd to rove in pure etheria! air, 
He prays his chaste, refin'd, and ardent love. 
He yet may cherish in the world above: — 
46 Ye angels that in your seraphic choir, 
u In heav'n's free courts tune the melodious lyre ; 
u Ye, who her sister soul from earth upbore, 
u ! when my stay below shall be no more, 



u Then in my Laura's train, O ! deign to fly, 
cc And waft me through the portals of the sky ; 
u There with her happy soul let mine unite 
" In endless ages of refin'd delight. 1 ' 



END OF PART FIRST. 



PART II. 



What groan was that, Lorenzo? Furies—rise, 
And drown in your less execrable yell 
Britannia's shame — there took her gloomy flight, 
On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul 
Blasted from hell with horrid lust of death, 
Thy friend, the brave, the gallant Altamont — 
So called; so thought . . . 

young's night thoughts, book 5, 



Where superstition holds her tyrant swayv 
Repelling, by grim frowns, the light of day; 
Grasping within her dark and ruthless chain, 
The sable natives of the Hindoo plain ; 
Led by her sullen and deluding voice, — 
The sun they hail, and at his sight rejoice, 
Their forms expose beneath his raging fires, 
From which the hardier beast to shades retires 3 - 
When his bright beams rise glorious from the east, 
Or more refulgent sink beneath the west, 



46 

Th' untaught Hindoo adoration pours, 

And the bright orb that lights the day adores ;— 

Immersed in error's dark bewildering maze* 

With trembling awe they on his radiance gaze; 

Prostrate before his glorious splendor bow, 

And incense offer with an holy vow, — 

And the huge rivers form'd beneath his might, 

Who out of chaos call'd the world to light, — 

Those wond'rous works created by his hand, — 

Existing solely by his high command, — 

The sons of Brama worship with pure zeal, — 

Whilst we before the pow'r that wrought them kneel; 

! if his works such homage can inspire, 

And fill the Indian with devotion's fire — 

If the vast system waken'd by his nod, — 

Blind superstition worships as a God; 



47 

What awe, what rapture, must the Christian own, 
Whose spirit mounts to the Eternal's throne ; — 
We the Creator, they his works adore, 
Our spirits to the exalted essence soar — 
To him who led his Israel through the flood, 
Whilst Egypt's host in dire amazement stood ; 
Then haste to follow — when the waters sweep 
High o'er their heads, and whelm beneath the deep— - 
Who by the cloud, the fiery pillar led, 
And still a table for his chosen spread — 
Who bade the rav'nous bird his will obey, 
And to his holy prophet food convey — 
Who made the widow's cruse of oil not fail, 
Nor suffer'd to decrease her scanty meal — 
Who 'gainst Goliah nerv'd young David's arm^ 
And taught to break the great Philistine's charm, 



48 



This the great God all love, all pow'r, all might — 
Forgiveness, mercy, — cloth'd with glory bright^ 
Who to the Christian spirit stands confest, 
And fills with peace and joy th' adoring breast. 

Shall we then imitate the savage creed ? 
No, rather pity, and aghast recede,— 
Against no law divine does he rebel, 
Nor guilt nor sorrow does his hand impel ; 
His hope that plunging in the holy wave, 
From sin's pollution will his spirit lave ; 
His Gods have taught that willing sacrifice 
Is the first virtue — -leads to fairest skies. 

The hapless widow of Malabar's coast — 
Makes it her pride, her duty, and her boast, 



49 

Of her dead lord, t' ascend the funeral pyre, 
And self devoted in the flame expire ; 
Th' ardent hope that fills her tender breast, 
To join her husband in the realms of rest, 
Of faithful, warm, enthusiastic mind, 
No joy on earth her widow'd soul could find; 
All in the flower of youth, in beauty's bloom, 
She immolates herself upon his tomb ; 
Stronger than nature's law, proud duty cries, 
Torture and pain her spirit can despise, 
Her aspect glowing with a tranquil smile, 
The willing victim rushes to the pile. 

« Think not (said Zara) fill'd with grief and rage* 
" Think not my soul's true ardor to assuage— 
" Talk not of charms, of beauty, or of youth 9 
" Behold! my tenderness, my zeal, and truth; 



C( 



50 

" To my dead lord, I'll sacrifice my life, 

" Nor taste the shame that waits a living wife, 

cc With steady pace I'll mount his funeral bier, 

My spirit laughing at the scalding tear, — 
" Then as the burning coal she eager clasps, 
ct And the hot embers in her hand fast grasps,— 
" Think not from sense of pain appall'd I sink, 
u Or from the thought of deadliest torture shrink ; 
" Just as unmov'd as now I hold this fire — 
" As calm and senseless will I mount the pyre;" 
With eloquence of speech, and pleading eyes, 
With bribes of gold and agonising sighs, 
The boon she begs to end her hated life, 
And leave the mem'ry of a duteous wife. 

So in the pagan unenlightened days, 
Contempt of life was virtue's highest praise y 






51 



Then when the sage's eager hopes, at best, 
Were vague and doubtless, by no promise blest ; 
Ere the blest Gospel to the world was giv'n, 
The soul to cheer, and point the path to heav'n, 
The Roman hero glorifi'd his name, 
And dying left behind a deathless fame; 
See noble Curtius take the leap profound, — 
Engulpri'd for ever in the closing ground ; 
Of Roman blood the noblest and the best, 
No selfish sorrow lurk'd within his breast; 
But willing Rome from misery to save, 
He self-devoted leaps into the grave, — 
And many heroes then of noble race, 
When suicide was counted no disgrace, 
When vict'ry, fame, or fortune from them fled, 
Deem'd it no crime, coolly their blood to shed. 

E 2 



52 

But long has truth's benignant lucid ray, 
Chas'd oracles and sybils far away ; * 
The pagan's doubts and empty fears dispers'd, 
And on the mind with bright refulgence burst, 
Before the Christian faith dark error fled, 
And revelation rais'd its beauteous head, 
On its firm basis man's best hopes are fix'd — 
Hopes unalloy'd, by doubts and fears unmix'd, 
And Christian heroes, men of great renown, — 
Princes and kings have bow'd to Fortune's frown, — 
With mild humility have kissed the rod, 
And in their fate beheld a chastening God. — 

! it is good of sorrow's cup to taste, 
'Tis the soul's balsam, and the mind's best feast ; 
The callous heart it softens and refines, 
To trust in God alone ! weak man inclines, 



53 



Opes the fine source from whence reflection springs, — 
And leads to weigh and ponder earthly things ; 
Makes us examine, reason, and compare, 
And shews us rightly what mean things we are- 
Frail and imperfect, even at the best, 
Is mortal man's still erring wayward breast; 
All, all, at times the chastening rod require, 
To make us to our inmost hearts retire ; — 
Thus God in pity calls us wand'rers home, 
And bids us to his blessed mansion come ; 
As onward borne by fortune's prosp'rous gale, 
When she auspicious fans life's gentle sail, 
Too often lulled by our propitious course, 
Of all our blessings we forget the source,— 
So soft, so smooth, so sweet along the stream, 
Thoughtless we glide, nor of misfortune dream, 



54 

Nor raise our hearts in gratitude to heav'n, 
For all the blessings by his mercy giv'n. 

Has guilt involv'd thee in its turbid wave — 
Live, and thy soul from the pollution lave; 
What tho' the world exult to see thy shame, 
And with delight thy infamy proclaim, — 
They who the loudest on thy guilt may dwell, 
Tempted like thee, like thee perhaps had fell; 
Then heed not thou, tho' man thy fall condemn, — 
Let him revile, reproach thee, and contemn ; — 
Live, and repent, nor add that last great crime, 
The shame and horror of fair Albion's clime ; — 
If e'er th' impious thought across thee rise, — 
- Reflect, ere yet thou make the sacrifice ; — 
Stop on eternity's tremendous brink,— 
And fromthe dark unkown with terror shrink ; 



55 

Dash from thy coward hand the guilltess blade, 
Fit instrument for war's destructive trade,— 
Methinks the shining- steel with shame should blush, — 
The conscious ball into earth's entrails rush,— 
The pois'nous cup convert its deadly juice, 
Into a liquor of most precious use,— 
Or ere assist frail man his blood to shed, 
Or such big* sorrow and destruction spread. 

Hark ! whence arose that shriek of wild despair — 
Those loud laments that vibrate on the air — 
Ha! whence those plaintive melancholy groans — 
Enough to melt rude rocks and flinty stones— 
Obdurate hearts, unfeeling, rough, and fierce, 
With direst terror, and dismay to pierce — - 
The feeling nerve with agony to swell. 
Such as nor pen can paint, nor tongue can tell, — 



56 

But who shall comfort to. the mourner give, — 
Who bid again her murdered husband live, — 
Who, for one moment, sooth her torturing pain,— ~ 
Who find a balm to cool her burning brain — 

From lovely Anna came the doleful sounds, 
Whose once calm breast is rack'd with cureless wounds; 
How chang'd those accents once so sweet and mild — 
How t chang'd that mien where peace and virtue smil'd. 
" See there his bleeding form, she loudly cries, 
" O! see how glassy and how sunk his eyes, — 
" And yet with pity still on me they turn, 
" And bid me his sad fate forever mourn; 
" Talk not of comfort, leave me here to die, 
i( In one cold grave together let us lie — 
" Together let our mouldering ashes rest — 
" Together mingle with our parent dust. 



57 

" Ah ! leave me, leave me, tear me not away, — 
u Here with his mangled relics will I stay, 
* On his pale lips I'll breathe my vital breath, 
" And wake my husband from the arms of death. 
" O ! heav'n Almighty from thy throne above, 
<f Pity my anguish, and restore my love ; 
<f Alas! alas! I supplicate in vain, — 
<c For never, never, will he wake again, — 
61 My hated life why did the murderer spare, 
" Why leave me here to languish in despair." — 
Then near the corse her wretched form she throws, 
And for a moment tears relieve her woes 5 
Till starting up, — " God's vengeance on the head, — 
" The murderous fiend, who dar'd his blood to shed — 
<c Perish the race of him who slew my lord, 
" May they all fall by the avenging sword ;" — 



58 



In vain her weeping friends present her child, 
She drives him from her with a gesture wild ; 
Nought can allay the fever of her brain, 
Or sooth her anguish for her husband slain; 
Till wearied nature quite exhausted droops, 
And for a while life's purple current stops ; 
O! had death then for ever seal'd her eyes. — 
Had pitying heav'n but snatch'd her to the skies,— 
Then had she happy died, nor known the worst, 
The heaviest grief that on the soul can burst — 
Then never had the beauteous mourner known, 
That th' unnatural deed was all his own — 
Then never had she known her husband died 
By his own hand — by monstrous suicide — 
Then never known that he could thus expose 
Her helpless form to misery's keenest woes — 



59 

That he impatient of the ills of life, 
Could leave his infant and his tender wife. 

Too soon the dreadful truth assails her ears, 
And adds fresh poignance to her bitter tears ; 
The heavy sorrow on her bosom prest, 
And reason of its empire dispossest, 
And evermore the hapless mourner raves,— 
Of deadly weapons, murder, blood, and graves 5 
Or if at intervals a lucid ray,— 
O'er the <lark chaos for a moment play ; 
The dreadful story darts across her mind, 
And direst madness follows close behind; 
For her, in vain, her lovely infant smiles,— 
Vain his endearments and his pretty wiles — 
In vain his half-formed accents lisp her name- 
His young delights in vain does he proclaim ; 



50 



Ah ! hapless boy, nor father, mother now— 
To guide thy feeble tottering steps hast thou ; 
The story sad thy unconscious mind awaits, 
Time shall unfold to thee their wretched fates \ 
Tell that thy sire in manhood's strength and bloom, — 
Rush'd all unsummon'd to the silent tomb ; 
His fortune ruined — he disdains his life, 
Flies from his infant child and lovely wife, — 
Yes, let the storm upon them beat and howl — 
On them let black misfortune vent her scowl ; 
'Tis for himself he feels — his wounded pride, — ■ 
Bears not that man his folly should deride ; 
But ah ! nor melting, nor melodious verse, — 
The anguish of the mourner could rehearse; — 
No, nor the polish'd, nor energic strain, — 
Could shew the widow'd fair one's grief and pain \ 



61 

Anguish so mighty mocks the power of thought, 
Nor could the muse with learning, genius, fraught, — 
With Pindar's eloquence — with Homer's force, 
Shew the dire woes that spring from this black source. 

The young Antonio, fortune's fav'rite son, 
In pleasure's rosy lap his course begun; 
Noble his birth, graceful his form and air, 
Of wealth unbounded the unrivall'd heir — 
Of this world's good, his cup indeed o'erflow'd — 
Elate with hope, his panting bosom glow'd — 
Pleasure, the only idol of his heart, 
Allur'd his reason by each specious art, — 
In gaudy colors to his dazzled sight, 
Her charms display'd, unfading, fair, and bright. 



62 



" O ! come (she cried) and revel in my bowYs, 
Ci Enjoy the fragrance of my perfum'd flow'rs ; — 
" Beneath thy feet the blushing rose shall spring-, 
" In softest strains shall gayest minstrels sing — 
" Wit shall the feath'ry wings of time beguile, 
" And beauty please thee with her softest smile, 
" Dull care shall never on thy mind obtrude, 
" Nor thought molest thee with her aspect rude; 
u Delay not then, but to my banners haste, 
" And life's voluptuous banquet freely taste \ — 
sc Let meaner souls my tempting joys forbear-— 
" Let prudence fright them with her rigid air — / 
" But let not thou her visionary chain 
" Shackle thy wishes — thy pursuits restrain — 
" Resign thyself a votary to my arms, , 
" Til please thy fancy with unbounded charms ; ,? 



63 



Thus, in soft whispers, she the youth beguiles, 

And snares the victim in her treacherous wiles ; 

Alas! how little deem'd his thoughtless mind, 

That, her attendant, vice was close behind, — 

He little dreamt, in height of youthful pride, 

How nearly vice to pleasure is allied; 

But while the Goddess all her charms reveal'd, 

Behind a mask her sister lay conceal'd ; — 

Weak, not corrupt, the young Antonio's heart, 

Till thus the Syren sapp'd its better part ; 

To her dominion all his soul Tie yields, 

Roves unrestrain'd thro' her enchanting fields,™ 

With souls congenial all his days are spent, 

In frothy wit, and boist'rous merriment :— 

<c Let us (they cried) the cup of rapture drain—* 

" Let's drown in sparkling wine all care and pain, 



64 



" Be it ours to revel on life's choicest feast, 
" Nor precious time in plodding dullness waste — - 
" Let beauty, wit, and mirth, our hours employ 
" And ev'ry thought be turn'd to love and joy ;" — 
Furious he plunges in his mad career, 
And too soon reaches vice's loathsome sphere, 
Of fashion, elegance, the certain test 
Of gallantry, the hero long confest — 
Amours, intrigues, his idle hours amuse, 
Whilst obstacles increase his treacherous views ; 
Virtue, morality, he laughs to scorn, 
Religion deems for fools, and dotage born, 
He longs to do a deed shall spread his name, 
And with his gay companions give him fame, 
He longs to shew that laws were made in vain, 
His passions or his wishes to restrain ; 



6S 

So ev'ry soft seducing art he tries', 
To make Aspasia marriage laws despise;— 
Beauteous she was, nor long become a bride* 
Vain admiration all her joy and pride; — > 
Fair to the view, but like the damask rose, — * 
Within whose bed the gnawing canker grows; 
So she all sweet and lovely to behold, — - 
Form'd in an exquisite and perfect mould,— 
But unadorn'd, unfortified, within, 
Lists to the tempter, and descends to sin ;- — 
Won by his polish'd and insidious tongue, 
Whence honied flattery in smooth accents sprungy 
The ill starr'd fair one draws upon her name 
Indelible disgrace and lasting shame,— 
Deserts her house in infamy to rove, 
The hapless victim of licentious love \ 

p 



60 

One deed alone is wanting io compleat 
Antonio's fame, and make him truly great,— 
Gloriously great, in gallantry and crime, 
The most accomplish'd hero of his time, — 
The injur' d husband now he longs to fight, 
And by his prowess, shew his conduct right, — 
First like another Paris steals the wife, 
Then points his arms against the husband's life,- 
Too soon was fill'd the measure of his guilt — 
Too soon the blood of noble Carlos spilt, — 
And now for refuge he his country flies, 
And leaves in deep despair his sacrifice, — 
Frantic become with grief, remorse, and shame, 
Curses she heaps on his detested name. — 
Ah! where for comfort can she turn her eye, 
Or whither from distracted mem'ry fly, — 



67 

Her husband's bleeding' form each thought pursues* 
And broken sleep the vision still renews, — 
" Virtue, Religion, now your charms I see — - 
" Now Guilt ! I taste your streams of misery — 
" Now on my wretched head perdition falls — 
" Now pale revenge her fated victim calls, — 
i( Honor and chastity, ye sacred names ! 
" Happy, thrice happy ! they who own your names, — - 
" O mem'ry — source of torture, woe, and paint— - 
4t ! cease thy empire o'er my burning brain- — 
" Alas ! remorse and shame, how sharp your stings, — ■ 
" What bitter sorrow from your fountain springs ; 
" To heaven I dare not look — J dare not pray, — 
<c Not heav'n itself can wash my crime away, — 
" Blood, must have blood — yes, there, and there alone, 
" I can my monstrous sin and guilt atone, — « 

F 2 



68 

% My bated life alone can expiate 

" An injur' tl husband's melancholy fate,— 

u Not hell itself can greater torments give, — 

" Why should despair and guilt presume to live;' 7 

Her horrid purpose fixM within her breast — 

Her wounded spirit seeks its broken rest, — » 

When, lo! with screams and cries she soon awakes, 

Each nerve, each limb, with agitation shakes j 

Around the room in wild affright she stares — 

On vacancy her eye with horror glares — 

ie 0, am I yet alive ! ,? at length she cried, 

" Then save me God ! — save me from suicide — 

" O, let me live ! a thousand-thousand years — 

" Live, to atone by penitential tears I — 

iC By deep contrition, solemn pray'rs, and sighs — 

u By a new life, my purposed sacrifice 3 — 



60 

** Methought the pois'nous draught in haste I drunk, 

" And to the mansions of perdition sunk; 

" But ah ! what shrieks — what bowlings of despair^ 

i( Echoed along the thick sulphureous air, — 

c * What hideous spectres — what terrific ghosts, 

a Glided along the dark infernal coasts, — 

u In vain I would have shunn'd the ghastly crew, 

e( Faster than I could fly they still pursue, — 

" And hail'd me to their lakes of liquid fire, 

f< Which burn eternal, — never to expire. — 

u Ah me ! 1 cried, and is there no retreat, — 

" And have I sealed my irrevocable fate, — 

" O ! would this were a vision of the night, 

" A frightful dream, dissolv'd by morn's fair light, — • 

a Hisses, loud laughs I heard, and rattling chains, 

" Whilst some in doleful accents breath'd their pains; 



70 

" One hideous spectre glided from the rest, 

" And thus, in hollow tones, my ear addrest f— 

i( What, gay Aspasia ! come to these dark shades, 

" Where gloom eternal every hour pervades, — 

" Where rosy pleasure never entrance makes, 

*' But leads the way, and then her prey forsakes, — 

" Say. was it thirst of vengeance sent thee here, 

" With loud reproaches to assail mine ear, — 

" Or faithful to thy passion dost thou come, 

" To soothe the sorrows of my wretched doom?" — - 

" Antonio ! in a horrid tone I cried, 

u O ! cease my guilt and folly to deride, — 

u Long ere my death, detested was thy name, 

i( Which caused my folly, my reproach, and shame, — 

* c But now thou hideous, ghastly, loathsome thing, 

" New torments from thy hated presence spring, — 



71 

r< might I hide me from this hellish crew, 

u But more than all the rest, foul fiend, from you."- 

u With me (said he) thou ever must abide, 

u Since thou, like me, by thy own hand hast died, 

u And this the den assigned for Suicide. 

" With gorgons, demons, furies, for our guests, 

u While scorpions gnaw and lash our guilty breasts — 

" We on this cursed — this infernal shore, 

li Eternally our folly must deplore." — 

iC Just then, methought, the ground beneath me shook, 

" When strait his earthly form Antonio took, — 

" His trembling hand a loaded pistoi grasp'd ; 

Ci He fired — he fell, and in convulsions gasp'd, — 

" I would have fled, but rooted to the ground, 

61 Within my hand the fatal cup I found, 

" Which to my lips some pow'r unseen impelled, 

u Whilst thousand voices in confusion yell'd,— 



72 

u With din tumultuous in my frighten' d ears, 
u Lo! for long ages, millions, endless years, — 
" Thou'rt doom'd to act the bloody story o'er, 
" Which plunged thy spirit on this dismal shore — 
" With shrieks that now, e'en now appal my soul, 
u That seem'd along the turbid air to roll, — 
" From death,from hell's dark shades at length I broke; 
" The dream dissolv'd, and I to life awoke, — 
" O, dream ! by heav'n — by some kind angel sent, 
Ci To bid me live my purpose to repent — 
" To save my spirit from hell's yawning gates— 
" From the despair that suicide awaits. 
" Come conscience, friendly conscience, act thy part, 
u Shew all my crimes, and pierce my hideous heart — 
" Welcome auspicious ! salutary guest ! — 
6 * O! come in all thy gorgon terrors drest,— 



73 

<* While thou upbraidest, I will weep and pray, 
* Till heav'n shall hear, and wash my crimes away, — 
" The God of mercies, thro' a Saviour's love, 
46 My unfeigned penitence, at length will move, — 
" Th' all-gracious Being, in his own good time, 
u Will ease my bosom of its heavy crime ; 
" Sure, if one crime all other crimes outweigh — 
" If at the last and retributive day, 
" When the loud trump shall man to judgment call— 
" If on one sin the wrath of God shall fall 
" More heavy than the rest — if banish'd from his face 3 
" Condemn'd to mourn in sorrow and disgrace,— 
" One set be exil'd from the throne of heav'n, 
" 'Tis they who by despair or guilt were driv'n, — 
" To brave th' Almighty's wise and just decree, 
" Usurp his pow'r— fix their own destiny ; 



74 



4t How can that soul with Angels hope to dwell, 
Qi Who dar'd against the Angels' God rebel. 



" O ! Penitence, the humbled sinner's friend, 
a Low at thy shrine my ready knee I bend, — 
" In my polluted heart deign to abide, 
" So shall its stains be wash'd and purified — 
u So all my past offences find a cure, 
" And every thought become as angels' pure — 
" So ever be that mercy glorified, 
" Which sav'd me from terrific suicide — 
" Snatch'd from those darksome caverns of deep night, 
" Those gloomy shades of thick sulphureous light— 
" Ages on ages, should I rest below, 
" Were still too short my gratitude to show. 
" ! deign t' assist me ev'ry pow'r divine, 
" Praises and pray'rs to pour at that dread shrine; 



75 



• Whose love all-gracious stay'd my impious hand 
* 6 From dire rebellion 'gainst his high command*" 

Antonio's crimes sat heavy on his soul, 
In vain from justice, and from law lie stole;— 
Xow pleasure's rosy sweets began to pail, 
No more he hears her soft seducing call,— 
No more for him her banquet she prepares, 
Nor longer sooths him with delicious airs; 
Conscience instead, and her unwelcome train, 
Within his bosom take their turn to reign ; — 
Now first reflection darted o'er his mind, 
But, ! what horrors when he looked behind, — 
What spectres of his former crimes appear, 
To rack his soul, and drive him to despair : 
W T here now the hope the guilty wish to shine, — 
A rake profest — a glorious libertine; 



Nor dice, nor wine, nor wit, can give him ease, 

Nor brightest beauty, for a moment please; 

Secret remorse upon his vitals preys, 

Subdues his spirits — his fine form decays, — 

His murder'd friend imagination fills, 

And all his soul with secret horror chills ; 

Oft swords and daggers pas3 before his eyes, — 

Whilst in his ear a voice for vengeance cries ; 

At dead of night from restless couch he starts, — ■ 

In vain he seeks the drowsy opiate's arts; 

For ah! no drug, no soporific charm, 

Could soothe his soul, or guilt's sharp sting disarm; — 

Confused ideas of avenging fate — 

Of God — and Justice, — of a future state — 

Now cross his soul; but, ah! not long remain, 

For chaos and despair distract his brain : 






77 

At length he cries — " Let priests and nurses tell 

"Of all the tortures and the pangs of hell, — 

11 Of liquid fires — of scorpions, serpents, snakes — 

" Of demons, furies, gorgons, brimstone lakes, — 

" I feel them all within my burning breast, 

" And hell itself, to what I feel, were rest ; 

" Aspasia ! Carlos ! both for vengeance call, — - 

r Both urge my fate, precipitate my fall; 

" Yet coward-like aghast I shuddering stand, — 

" And fear to venture on an unknown land ; 

Ci But grant the worst, what if the soul survive — 

" What if the conscience still be kept alive ; 

" Surely some respite 1 shall undergo, 

<c Some interval, at least, from pain and woe." 

Then as he had liv'd in guilt, in guilt he died, 

And finish 'd his career by Suicide : 



78 

Thus pleasure, thus, thy gay insidious smiles — 
Thy syren charms fond youth too oft beguiles* 
And thus thy flattering prospects oft entice 
Th' unwary vot'ry to the snares of vice ; 
Till plung'd in sin and guilt, down he descends 
And like Antonio in destruction ends. 



EM> OF TAUT SECOND, 



P A R T III. 



Oft alas ! ye dan 



To lift against yourselves the murd'rous steel 
To wrest from God's own band the sword of justice, 
And be your own avengers ! Hold, rash man, 
Though with anticipating speed thou'st rang'd 
Through every region of delight, nor left 
One joy to gild the evening of thy days ; 
Though life seem one uncomfortable void, 
Guilt at thy heels, before thy face despair ; 
Yet gay this scene, and light thy load of woe, 
Compar'd with thy hereafter — think, O think, 
And, ere thou plunge into the vast abyss, 
Pause on the verge awhile — look down and see 
Thy future mansion — why that start of horror ? 
From thy slack hand why drops th' uplifted steel ? 
Didst thou not think such vengeance must await 
The wretch that with his crimes all fresh about him, 
Rushes irreverent, unprepar'd, uncall'd, into 
His Maker's presence, throwing back 
With insolent disdain, his choicest gift ? 

TORTEUS. 



^ / 



Judas, the traitor, with a holy sign, 
Betrays to sinners' hands the Lord divine ; 
The Tempter entering his insatiate heart, 
Impels to this detested fiend like part: — ■ 
iC He whom I kiss, behold! the same is he, 
" Seize and conduct to death and agony." 
Against the Lord of Peace brings war's fierce bands, 
Offensive weapons, and red gleaming brands ; 
The fell enticer, tempting with base gain, 
Prompts him his soul with sacred blood to stain,-— 

a 



82 

Prompts him his heavenly master to betray, — 
And give to vilest wretches as their prey; 
O! crime accurst, 0! dark infernal deed, 
The spotless Lamb, by sinners doom'd to bleed; 
Well may remorse writhe round that guilty soul, 
Beyond or gold or silver's poor controul, — 
Well may its gnawing ever-during fangs, 
With iron tooth infix its racking pangs, — 
Well may despair and black involving gloom r 
Impel his frenzied footsteps to the tomb; — 
Th' exulting tempter triumphs in his might, 
His victim's mis'ry his supreme delight, — 
Now howling passions in his bosom rave, 
Crying aloud " ! hide thee in the grave ;" 
The fatal silver, cause of all his woes, — 
With horror in the temple down he throws, 



83 

And whilst congenial furies round him rise, 
The monster Suicide attracts his eyes, — 
A hideous spectre from the caves of hell, 
Bidding his breast again with murder swell,— 
Remorse her sharp edg'd dagger still uprears, 
Where e'er he flies to his wild view appears,— 
Past, present, future, to his mind can bring 
No hope to blunt her cureless barbed sting ;*— 
The deed is done — and forth his bowels gush, 
As round his vitals death's convulsions rush. 

Ah ! where could turn that sad benighted mind— 
Where refuge from the scourge of conscience find,- — 
The murder' d Saviour ever in his view, 
More hated, more abhorr'd, his treach'ry grew; 
His dying pardon vibrates in his ear, — ■ 
The crown of thorns — the reed — the cross — the spear- 

G 2 



84 



The vast indignities the Lord sustain'd, 

it 

Yet ne'er upbraided, murmur'd, or complain'd,— ■■ 
He saw all nature tremble with affright, 
Th' indignant sun withdraw his glorious light — 
The shrouded dead forth from their tombs arise r 
Astonish' d at the spotless sacrifice ; 
The holy Lamb rejected , — scorn'd, — opprest, — 
By these dread signs God's promis'd Son confest, — 
Nail'd to the cross — the wretched traitor sees, 
And feels compunction all his members seize ; — 
Ye treach'rous spirits! Judas-like, malign, — 
Offering the kiss of peace — and love benign ; 
Whose accents fall as sweet as Hybla's dews— 
Whose eye the tear of crocodiles effuse ; 
Who well conceal by your insidious wiles, — 
Vows of pure friendship and affected smiles ; 



85 

The ranc'rous malice lurking in your hearts, — 

The web of mischief weaving by your arts ; 

Ah ! short will be your triumph o'er the prey* 

Whom ye deceive, calumniate, betray ; — 

For he th' almighty, just, and living God, 

Hath o'er ye raised the retributive rod, — 

Ready to fall on your polluted head, 

When least his just avenging hand ye dread; 

Whilst his good angels hover round th' opprest, — 

And sooth to harmony the goaded breast ; 

Tune the vexed chords to sweetest joy and peace,-— 

And bid the murmurings of the spirit cease. 

" The wicked raging like the troubled sea, 

u Dash to and fro, nor find a friend in me: 

4i They (saith the Lord) in vain may turn their eyes,— 

" Still shall the worm — the worm that never dies, 



86 



" Their ev'ry hope of peace and rest consume, 
u Their vitals gnaw and cloud with care and gloom, — 

u Whilst innocence shall flourish as the flow'r, 

" Planted and watered by my sov'reign pow'r, — 
"As the green willow or the spicy rose, 

" That over Sharon's plain its fragrance throws ; 

" Cherished and shielded by my watchful eye, 

" The arrow hurl'd shall pass innoxious by ; — 

<c My loving children I will still defend, 

" Their father, saviour, judge, avenger, friend, — 

" Mightier than all the might of feeble man, 

" For I am He that was ere time began ; — 

" Your heavy darkness will I turn to light, 

11 And shew my glory as the noon-day bright ; 

" I will exalt ye by my lofty name, 

" Smite all your foes, and bring to open shame; — 



87 



44 But if from me in thought or deed ye stray , 
44 And vainly hope to find a surer stay, — 
44 I will in mercy smite ye — till ye see 
44 That I am God, — and there is none but me; 
" Till turning from the world ye seek my throne 
" And my chastisements as a blessing own ; — • 
" Till on my bosom penitent ye fall, — 
44 And for returning love and favor call." 

Ah! what can man the creature of a day, 
Whose flesh like grass is passing fast away; — 
Can he in thy defence his arm upraise, 
Strengthen thy weakness and confirm thy ways ? 
Nerveless may fall the arm prepar'd to save, 
And thy defender find a sudden grave ; 
Like thee of ashes made and mouldering dust, 
However high in riches, rank, or trust,— 



88 



Like thee subservient to his Maker's pow'r, — 
Tasting 1 like thee affliction's adverse hour; — 
Then lean not thou on aught in this frail sphere, 
But on the dread Jehovah cast thy care ; 
Who turns to gladness the sad mourning voice, 
And bids the captive in his strength rejoice. 

When royal Dar'us sign'd the rash decree, 
That to the living God none bow the knee: — 
" /, JT alone, will their petitions hear, — 
" Me shall they rev'rence, and my counsels fear ; 
" I am their king — my will they shall obey, — 
" To me their homage, adoration pay:" 
The holy Daniel, fearless, undismay'd, — 
Still to the Lord of truth devoutly pray'd ; 
Three times a day his spirit seeks his God, 
Nor dreads the haughty monarch's threaten'd rod \ 



89 

Above man's vengeance and his weak control, 

On wings of faith mounts up the Prophet's soul ;— 

Smiling at earthly kings, their pomp and train, 

He zealous pours devotion's fervent strain j— 

Till fetter'd-captive— in the lions' den, 

To glut the malice of insatiate men; 

Who all elate, exulting in his fate, 

Roll the huge stone of vast enormous weight,-* 

Strait by the royal signet rendered sure, 

Above a single mortal arm secure ; 

Yet to the living Lord his heart is rais'd,— 

His glorious majesty, his wisdom prais'd ; 

Yet is he own'd omnipotent and just, 

The faithful Daniel's rock, defence, and trust; 

The hungry beasts with looks of tameness greet,— 

Harmless they fawn and crouch beneath his feet,— 



90 



Their savage nature chang'd — by heav'n's command, 

Like lambs around their holy guest they stand, — 

For, lo ! God sends his blessed angel forth, 

To stay their cravings, sooth to peace their wrath — 

To bid his servant smile at danger's hour, 

Above or man's or rav'nous lions' pow'r ; — 

The everlasting Lord is with him still, 

Turning to joy and comfort ev'ry ill. 

Dar'us, the while, in palaces of state, 

Whose nod the crowd of sycophants await ; — 

Whom richest gems and purple robes adorn, 

Beneath the gilded crown still feels the thorn ; — 

Music nor banquets offer him delight, 

In broken starts passes his sleepless night; 

Tortur'd and stung by secret agony, — 

The sting of conscience for the rash decree. 



91 

Ah ! what can silken robes, or festive sports, 

The golden sceptre — all the pomp of courts, — 

The mantling bowl — the sparkling rosy wine, — 

If tyranny to deeds of guilt incline?— 

But with what awe — what wonder — rapture seiz'd, — «■ 

How agitated — lost — transported— pleas'd, 

When in the morn the holy man he found 

Alive — untouch'd — nor mark— nor scar — nor wound;- 

Not the least sign of hungry lions' rage, 

Eager in blood their cravings to assuage, — 

Exceeding gladness all his soul possest, 

The prophet's God with rapture he confest, — 

Instant he issues a supreme decree, 

That to the living God all bow the knee. 

" Let all men tremble at his mighty name, 

a Thro' my dominions spread his pow'r and fame j 



m 

* c He, He is stedfast, he for ever lives, — 

w 'Tis he protection, life, and safety gives ; 

" His, the high kingdom time shall not destroy, 

u He turns captivity to life and joy ; 

94 To him alone be adoration giv'n, 

*' Who signs and wonders works in earth and heav'n;- 

• c To Beauty's holiness, to Zion's might, 

<c Day spring of hope bedeck'd with glory's light j- 

<c Who was before or sun, or moon, or star, 

" Riding aloft, the golden clouds his car; 

" Who rescu'd Daniel from the lions' den, 

" The wrath and malice of blood thirsty men ; 

u Let the glad isles, and Salem's distant coasts, 

u Resound the praises of the Lord of hosts." 

Had he of France the sacred page but sought, 
With faith, with hope, with balmy comfort fraught j 



93 



There had he found those blest, those precious sounds," 
A cure for doubt, and penury's bitter wounds. 
*' Ye hungry, thirsty, come ye all to me, — 
" ! come the streams of my abundance see ; 
" Here wine and milk the thirsty shall supply, — ■ 
" ! come without or price or money buy, 
" In peace and fatness shall your souls delight? 
" Then turn to me, 'tis I the Lord invite ; — 
" If my great name and pow'r your hearts employ, 
" Forth shall ye pass with an exceeding joy; 
" The mountains and the hills before ye sing, — 
u Trees clap their hands, and forests skip and spring ; 
" Instead of prickly thorns green firs shall grow,— 
u Instead of wild-brier beauteous myrtle blow ; 
" My holy angels shall your spirit guard, 
" And pleasant pastures for ye be prepar'd,— 



94 

" Perplexing fears shall change to sweetest smiles — « 

u To rosy paths your rugged roads and toils." 

But he, alas! when penury's keen smart, 

Grim-visaged, writhes around his sinking heart, — 

In sullen pride his poverty conceals* 

Nor seeks that comfort which the needy heals ; — ■ 

The Almighty's strength, his blessed word foregoes, 

And flies to death to cure his bosom's woes; — 

Of soul too proud to sue and supplicate, 

He dares the worst of crimes to meditate; — 

He sees want seize his lov'd and suffering wife, 

And whispers, — termination of her life: — 

O, impious! by despair and doubt grown wild, 

To famine's jaws he dooms his only child; 

O, barbarous parent! better hadst thou fed 

Thy infant's cravings, by the bitter bread — 



95 

Drawn from cold Charity's reluctant hand,— 
Iinplor'd from street to street, from land to land, — »' 
Than thus, impel i'd by poverty and pride, 
Devote thy wife and self to suicide. 
Th* unconscious child, a guiltless sacrifice, 
Condemn'd to starve before the parents' eyes : 
Behold him with the partner of his cares, 
Who long had shar'd his secret sighs and tears, 
Till grief and anguish glazed the weeping eye, 
Consum'd their source, and bade the stream be dry ; — 
Faithful thro' life with him consign'd to death, 
Impatient only to resign her breath, 
Whilst helpless innocence before their eyes, 
Consum'd by hunger, just expiring lies : — 
By bolts and bars from prying eyes secur'd, 
In a lone chambers dreary gloom immur'd, 



96 

On death, their saviour and their only friend, 
They call — their mis'ries and their wants to end ; — 
In famine's squalid dreadful form array'd, 
The grisly monarch quick advances made; 
By the gaunt spoiler nearly now subdu'd, 
Their child with piteous cries imploring food ; 
Soul rending sight, his little hands extends, 
As o'er their dying forms he feebly bends; 
More and more languid now the pulses beat, — 
Parch'd their wan lips, the blood foregoes its heat ; 
Life's latest spark just fluttering on the wing r 
Death hovering with his scythe to cut the string;— 
When, hark ! the door by friendship's hand is burst, 
Their lives preserv'd, and their hard fate revers'd; 
Ah! what a scene for friendship's weeping eye t 
Sinking to death those dear lov'd objects lie; 



97 

Genius and beauty in youth's flow'ry bloom, 
Locked hand in hand descending to the tomb, — 
Victims of pride, of rashness, and despair, 
Doubting heav'n's goodness and all-bounteous care; 
Yet He with arm outstretched their fate averts,-— 
He merciful beyond our mean deserts, — 
He interpos'd from famine's jaws to save, 
And snatch'd the victims from the yawning grave,— 
From hell-born Suicide's detested might, 
Sprung from the caverns of infernal night, — 
From never-dying conscience — whose sharp fang, 
Increases still th' unsated gnawing pang; — 
c Sav'd are the wretched pair — sav'd to repent 
Their monstrous, diabolic, foul, intent. 
Ah! what but pray'r — but penitence and praise, 
Could mark the tenor of their future days; 

H 



98 

Yet all too short, the remnant of their time. 
To make atonement for their heinous crime, — 
To seek again their heavenly Father's face, 
And taste again his all abundant grace, 

Like the lone spirit of the mountain storm, 
Wander'd a pale and melancholy form ; 
Loose streamed her auburn tresses to the wind, — 
To sad despair and negligence consign'd ; 
All on the margin of the darksome flood, 
With aspect wild, irresolute she stood; 
Heav r n-ward her dim and cheerless eye was turn'd, 
To Him whose mandates she in sorrow spurn'd: — 
" Surely (she cried) he who enthron'd on high, 
" Beholds our frailties with a father's eye, 
" Does not first punish with a rig'rous fate,— 
« And then condemn to everlasting hate; 



99 

* Those who by sensibility refin'd, 

" No resting place around the world could find— 

" No breast congenial- — no endearing friend 

" In tender sympathy of soul to blend; 

r< Treach'ry instead, and malice, and deceit, 

" Following where'er they turn their weary feet; — ■ 

" Like the delicious and enchanting brakes, 

<c Whose smiling flow'rs conceal the folded snakes : 

" O, God! my reason can no more sustain, — 

** Ah! then forgive me if I fly from pain, — - 

u Since longer woe my senses would bereave, — 

" O ! deign my weary spirit to receive.'* 

Sudden, loud pealing thunders o'er her brake, — 
Roll the black clouds — mountains and vallies shake — 
Swift flash the light' nings o'er the pitchy gloom, 
The deep convolving horror to illume — 

h a 



100 

In heavy torrents falls the drenching rain- 
Rush the vex'd winds tremendous o'er the plain — 
Louder and louder yet the thunders crash — 
More fierce — more quick the forked light' nings flash — 
The red bolt ready o'er her head to fall, 
Might well with horror and dismay appal ; — 
In the concussion of the angry spheres, 
The answer to her impious pray'r she hears ; — 
Awe-struck she stands, and different fate expects, 
But who reproves, in danger still protects ; 
Tho' long the fires rage round her fenceless head — 
Tho' the bolt drops— all hissing, fiery, red, — 
With vast explosiop, singeing as it past, 
The hair that floated to the howling blast; 
Yet is she sav'd in this destructive hour, 
From the rude tempest's desolating pow'iv — 



101 

By the offended, but all-gracious heav'n, 
In tender mercy is forbearance giv'n ; — 
But ah ! across her chasten VI contrite soul, 
What various solemn combinations roll : — 
God's voice she hears in the dread thunder's roar* 
Commanding his decisions to adore;— 
His angry mien in the blue lightning gleams, — 
His pow'r in all the mighty tempest streams ; 
Abash'd, — confounded, — terrified, — subdu'd, — - 
Her rash design with horror is review'd; 
Trembling she sees that God is love and might, 
And humbly owns " whatever is, is right" — 
Owns that her woes were blessings in disguise. 
To wean from earth, and lead her to the skies; 
Pluck' d is the bleeding arrow from her heart, — 
Repining gloom and sorrow thence depart,— 



102 

Sublim'd, exalted, strong her aching breast, 
By heavenly faith and seraph hope possest \ — 
Benignant smiles again that face adorn, 
And roses sweet as blushes of the morn ; 
Again the lustrous eye bespeaks the mind, 
Calmly serene, ennobled, and rehVd, — 
That eye, where Lite despair was wont to scowl, 
As thrqn'd he sat within her troubled soul ;— 
Blessing and blest she lives within her sphere, 
Nor e'er from selfish sorrow sheds a tear ; 
To God whose spirit in the whirlwind rides — 
The clouds his footstool, —she unmov'd confide* 
Every event of this all-changing state, — 
Convinc'd He only knows to rule her fate. — 



103 



Who to the dreary church-yard glides, 
What time the moon the dark vault rides; 
When muffted deep in sable clouds, 
Her pale and shVry head she shrouds ; — 
Or peeps to shew the whit'ning bones,— 
Beneath the crumbling broken stones. 



What sad voice dies upon the blast, — 
As rudely round the tombs it sweeps ; 
Howling in fierce murmurings vast, — 
Whilst low the dead in silence sleeps; 
Released from all the woes of life, 
Ambition, envy, malice, strife.— 



104 



Now sweetest warblings soft and mild, 
Breathe melody in heav'nly strain ; 
Now burst load screams discordant — wild, 
Dire anguish breathing grief and pain ; 
In concert with the winds that howl, — 
Seems the mourner's troubled soul. 



Whence that laugh — not joy, but sadness, 

From despair it surely springs ; — 

'Tis the frantic laugh of madness, 

Horror o'er the soul it flings ; — 

Who is it thus that wildly raves, 

And strews her tresses 'midst the graves ? 



105 



'Tis the maid of tencTrest feeling*, 
Gay delight once wing'd her days; 
Now, beyond the power of Healing', 
Sorrow on her fine nerve preys; 
What can pluck the barbed dart — 
From her wounded breaking heart ? 



Beauteous once as blushing rose, 
When first its pale leaves bud to view; 
When at morn all fresh it glows, — 
Bath'd with gems of glittering dew j 
Like that fragile flower decay 'd, — 
Or lily bow'd — so droops the maid.™ 



106 



The lustre in her fine eye beaming, 
Her energy of mind exprest; — 
With benignant mildness streaming, 
It spoke the virtues of her breast; — 
Goodness shone in all her features, — 
One of heaven's most perfect creatures. 



Once the joy of all who knew her, — 
Profuse the rich were in her praise; 
The poor all blest her — ran to view her, 
With love and gratitude to gaze; 
Tears of thankfulness they shed, — 
And blessings heap'd upon her head. 



107 



Ask ye what the change has wrought— 
Ask ye why at night's sad gloom, 
Her soul with heavy anguish fraught, — 
She wanders round a lonely tomb, — - 
There pouring on the midnight gale. 
Her bosom's melancholy tale.— 



There her murder'd lover's lying, 
He who lov'd with jealous pride, — 
There his fleeting ghost seems crying, 
Calling her for whom he died; — 
Where the sad distracted maid, — 
Hails her Henry's wand'ring shade. 



108 



Before they met, her hand was plighted, 
'Twas her father's dear command ; — 
He whose will she never slighted, — 
Promis'd her in Hymen's band; 
But her heart, her spirit, soul, — 
Henry came, and from her stole. 



Love and duty now contending, — 
In her virtuous tortur'd breast ; 
Anguish and distraction rending, — 
She who late was calm and blest; 
O ! time, arrest your flight — ! stay 
Bring not near the destin'd day. 



109 



" Fly ! let ns fly !" young Henry cries,- 

With desperation in his eyes : — 

" By hell! by ctll the powers divine! 

" I live not, if thou art not mine! 

" Didst ever read poor Werter's fate, — 

" O ! save me ere it be too late ? 



" Dost think that I can live and bear, 
" To see thee to another wed P— 
" Live! in my bosom black despair,— 
<c Frenzy,— distraction,- — in my head; 
u No, — if thou leave me, I must die, — 
<c And dost thou still refuse to fly !" 



no 



" Fly ! heedless of my filial vow — 

" 0! no, not e'en for love and thou; — 

<c Fly ! and my honour'd sire desert, 

" The deed would surely break his heart; 

" No, since one sacrifice must be, — ■ 

" I bow resigned— it shall be me. 



** Dear Henry ! look not thus," and smil'd, 

u In plaintive accents soft v and mild, 

" Remember there's a world above, — 

" Where we shall meet — meet free to love; — 

" ! let our spirits thither soar, 

" Where time, nor death, shall ever part us more, 



Ill 



u Life is at best a vale of tears, — 

<c Design' d our souls to purify, 

u And he who best his passage bears, — 

iC Is fittest inmate for the sky ; 

" Who pleas' d can his own will resign,- 

* l Shall deepest drink of joys divine. 



" Tho' now 'tis death with thee to part, 
" 'Tis filial love and duty sways; — 
16 Rather Fd break my own sad heart,— 
u In silent grief consume my days, — 
" Than bow to earth my tender sire, — 
* c Far rather would I now expire. 



112 



" The sweets at least of recollection, 

<c Our agitated souls will calm, — 

" And mem'ry wing'd with retrospection,- 

" Shall with her bring a cordial balm ; 

u Reflecting that to virtue true, — 

" From selfish hopes we nobly flew. 



" Then dearest Henry, calm that brow — 

" Recal tliat sad terrific vow ; 

<l Live, and be happy, 'tis my last request, — 

c# O ! live, and bear my image in thy breast; 

" Remember all my soul is thine, — 

<c Tho' low I bend at dutvV shrine. 



113 

More and more calm she thought appeared his face, 

As near he drew to take a last embrace ; 

Fondly he press'd her to his aching heart, 

u Why did we ever meet, or never part? 

" Thou virtuous excellence, — 0! fare thee well, — 

" Live thou in peace — live, and thy sex excel." 

In vain she seeks her feelings to conceal, — 
Torrents of tears, alas ! the truth reveal ; 
Scarce can her trembling limbs their weight sustain,- 
One effort more — and she's herself again ; 
From his embrace her struggling form she tears, 
Nor hears his groan — nor his reproaches hears ; 
In virtue strong, above herself she soars, — 
And flies for ever him she most adores; — 
In stupifying grief awhile entranc'd, 
Whilst time with rapid strides the day advanc'd— « 

I 



114 

The fatal day for her unwilling vows — . 
Her doom to seal, and make her Hubert's spouse ;— 
Henry's despair increases on her mind, — 
With images of woe and death combin'd ; 
No friendly opiate brings refreshing sleep — 
Still on her restless couch she wakes to weep,— 
Nor, if a broken slumber seal her eye, 
Does startling terror from her bosom fly : 
Sometimes she sees his pale and wandering shade- 
In blood-stained vestments all denTd array'd; 
Or whilst his threat full on her ear resounds, — 
She sees him gasping, pierc'd with mortal wounds,— 
Sees his expiring eye upon her fixt, 
Where love, despair, and agony are mixt; — 
By day, by night, she hears his rash resolve, 
Nor other subject could her mind revolve. 



115 

Now at her father's feet in tears she kneels^ 
And all the secret of their love reveals ; 
A plain " unvarnish'd tale" with broken sighs, 
She tells that wretched Henry for her dies ; 
Nor did her father chide with angry brow,— 
Nor vengeance on his lovely daughter vow ; 
For he had witness' d her angelic mind, — 
Her filial duty, noble and resign'd; 
E'er since em ploy 'd the marriage to avert,— 
And make her happy as her great desert: 
The tears of anguish streaming from her eyes, 
His tender hand with pious rapture dries, — - 
To peace restores, with kind benignant smile,-— 
Such as might every doubt and fear beguile; — - 
Blessings and kisses heaps upon her head, 
And tells that Henry she ere long shall wed \ 

12 



116 

To his fond sight a seraph she appears, — 
Descended from heaven's own celestial spheres; 
With silent joy he rais'd the mental pray'r, 
To him who made her virtuous as fair. 

Now joy unhop'd darts thro' each burning vein, 
Rushes the tumult to her dizzy brain ; 
From saddest woe — from exquisite distress, — 
What sensate nerve can bear joy's last excess; 
Now thro' her soul the sudden rapture thrills, — 
Then, scarce believing, with amazement chills ; 
Fainting, extended at her father's feet, 
Life's fluttering pulse awhile forgets to beat ; 
But when to joy and happiness restor'd, — 
What grateful blessings on his head are pour'd, — 
What precious drops in torrents fast descend — 
On the lov'd bosom of her honor'd friend. 



117 



She sees her Henry's agitated breast — ■ 
Calm and composed as is the turtle's nest, — 
She sees the smile again play round his face, — 
His drooping form resume its wonted grace, — 
His fine blue eye again with lustre bright, — 
Despair give place to rapture and delight. 
Trembling she hastes to speed the happy news, — 
How gracious heaven had deign' d to change their views ,• 
J) wells on the virtues of her tender sire, 
With all the pathos fervor could inspire ; — 
Entreats the messenger make no delay, — 
But with her welcome billet win^ his way. 



118 



Bootless the messenger may haste, — 
His time — his speed he shall but waste ;- 
In vain he flies on duty's wing, 
Never shall he the happy tidings bring \> 
Why sudden stops his foaming steed ? 
What checks the fiery courser's speed ? 



Alas! that noise, — hark! whence the sound, — 

Ha! who lies weltering on the ground,— 

Bathed in a purple rolling flood, 

A mangled corse in smoky blood \ — 

Ha! whence that long, long broken sigh, — 

What struggling spirit seems to fly. 



119 



That sad distorted face behold, — 
Those eye-balls in convulsions roll'd,- 
That mutilated form, ah! see 
Writhing in last extremity, — 
Seems, as if torn by passions dire, — 
His soul departed full of ire. 



'Tis Henry — urged by desperation — 
He the accursed ball has aimed — 
His the horrid perpetration — 
By his own hand he thus is maimed j 
Whilst fate is weaving wreaths of joy,- 
Th' impatient dares himself destroy. 



120 



What are his last sad meditations? 
The page still open near his side, — 
Bespeaks, alas! his cogitations- 
Were on that guilty Suicide, — 
Seems to have been his final prayer, — 
The wretched Werter's rash despair. 

Vainly the hapless Julia counts the hours, — 
Vainly her listening ear each noise devours, — 
In vain illusive joys she fondly weaves, 

And thus the leaden foot of time deceives. 

j 

Alas ! unfortunate and beauteous maid, 
Better for thee slow time his pace had stay'd;- 
In vain thy footsteps linger near the gate, 
Anxious to know the colour of thy fate, — 



121 

In vain thy wandering eye o'er distance roves, 
Eao-er to view the form thy sosl best loves, — 
Nor when grey evening shed her pensive ray, 
Back to the mansion has she trod her way,— 
Not till night's dark and sable curtain falls, 
Does she unwilling seek the sheltering walls. 

The woe-struck Father hears the tale aghast, — 
Like the fair flower destroy 'd by light'ning's blast ; 
So all the golden dreams his soul had built, — 
Perish at once by Henry's fatal guilt ; 
With kindest sympathy he draws a veil, 
Nor dares the melancholy truth reveal \ 
But, ah! the pitying look a the tear represt, — 
Spoke the big secret labouring in his breast, — 
With love's all scrutinising jealous eye,— 
She mark'd th' evasive and confused reply ; 



122 

Day after day elapsed, no promised news, — 
To cheer her dismal and desponding views ; 
Now confirmation steals across her soul, — 
Nor arts, nor kindness can her grief control; 
She knows — yet dreads to know — hope's cheating ray 
Not quite extinct — she wishes yet to stay ; 
Whilst these dire conflicts raging unreveal'd, — 
From all but friendly solitude conceal'd, — 
Plunge her at length in fever's burning fires, 
With recollection, hope's faint beam expires, — 
Hovers death's angel round her drooping head, — 
And death his sable pinions seems to spread ; 
But struggling nature, and high heaven's decree, 
Restore her back to life and misery. 

Reason still hovers round the mourner's head, 
But all life's energy and fire are fled; 



123 

Of every virtuous noble thought bereft, — 
Mem'ry enough to light her sorrow left ; 
In vain the fictious well invented story,— 
That heaven had snatch'd her lover's soul to glory — 
That pale disease, with sudden quick surprise, 
Had clos'd in everlasting death his eyes;— - 
Too well, too well, the fatal truth she knew,— 
His bleeding corse for ever meets her view ; 
Too sure, alas ! the desperate Henry died,— 
By rash despair — a wretched Suicide : — 
At night's dark hour when loud the whirlwinds rave, 
She loves to wander round his lonely grave, — 
To hold sad converse with the passing wind, 
And sing the sorrows of her burden'd mind^ 
No other hope but that the quiet tomb, 
Will soon the anguish of her soul consume, — 



124 



Hers that corroding never ending grief, 

That laughs at time, and proudly mocks relief. 



EM) OF PART THIRD. 



PART IV. 



They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and 
consider thee, saying, is this the man that made the 
earth to tremble — that did shake nations? 

ISAIAH, CHAP. Xiv. VERSE 16. 

No more be mention'd then of violence 
Against ourselves, and wilful barrenness 
That cuts us off from hope, and savours only 
Rancour and pride, impatience and despite, — 
Reluctance against God and his just yoke 
Laid on our necks 

MlLTON. 



I (saith the holy Lord) alone am he, 
Who loose the captive, set the prisoner free,— 
I am alone my people's rock and guide, — 
Saviour, redeemer — there is none beside, — 
I your Creator, rock — your God and King-* 
Who make the mountains and the vallies sing — 
Who the black clouds around the heavens drew — - 
Who water Lebanon with holiest dew; 
I make the myrtle in the desert blow— 
The cedars on the lofty Carmel grow— 



128 

" The sandy wilderness a fruitful field, 
e And pleasant vintage bid it straitly yield, — 
(( From the hard rocks bid streams of waters gush, 
*' And make the morning at my presence blush : 
u Then fear ye not — nor be your hearts dismay'd, 
,€ On me, your strength, be all your sorrow stay'd : — 
" I am not weary, (saith th' Almighty Lord) 
" To earth's remotest ends my power is heard; 
" 'Tis I exalt — 1 make the mighty low, — 
" Turn to rejoicing heaviness and woe ; 
" Tho' for a night distress of soul be borne, — 
" Yet joy and healing cometh with tbe morn; 
u 1, from my lofty throne above the sky, 
< c Behold th' afflicted raise the weeping eye; 
" They who on sorrow's bitter cup have fed, — 
" Tears for their drink — ashes their bitter bread, 



129 

u Asunder I their captive cords will break, 

" Strengthen the feeble knees, thro' fasting weak : 

<c On eagles' wing's shall they who on me wait, 

" Aloft be borne — firm as a rock their seat; 

" Nor faint, nor weary, drooping in their race, 

%i Cheer'd by the shining brightness of my face, — 

" 'Tis mine the cup of fury to destroy, 

" And bid thee drink henceforth of streams of joy ; 

rt Its dregs shalt thou no more in trembling taste, 

6i To change my fury I, the Lord, will haste, — 

" And they who long have bow'd thee to the dust, 

" Shall drink the cup, and see that I am just, — 

" They who have bow'd thy body to the ground, 

" Shall in their place of pow'r no more be found; — 

" Vengeance is mine — mine arm uprais'd shall pay 

" The black transgressions of thy sinful day." 

K 



130 

Now sing, O, heavens! and joyful be, O, earth! 
Break forth ye mountains into , holy mirth, — 
The God of Zion now his glory shows, — 
Exalts th' afflicted — scatters wide their foesf 
Behold! he comes with high and mighty hand — 
He comes with vengeance to redeem his land, — 
He comes his chosen flock with love to feed — 
His gentle lambs in his kind bosom lead ; 
Mountains and hills ! before his presence bend, 
Ye vallies ! grateful odours to him send ; 
Pavillion'd in thick darkness see him move, 
His awful grandeur mix'd with mildest love, — 
He comes the spoiler in his pride to spoil, 
To snare the crafty in his cunning toil,— 
He comes all arm VI in beauty's, glory's might, 
To nut the hypocrite, to shame and flight; 



131 

The lofty Lebanon's delight and boast, 
Whose holv dews refresh'd vast Sharon's coast, — 
Who his thick clouds around high Carmsl spread. 
And pillar'd haughty Bashan's tow' ring head; — 
He comes in all his pomp and grandeur drest, 
The robe of righteousness his flaming vest, — 
In his right hand the sword of truth he waves, 
And the opprest from the oppressor saves; 
Now shall the wicked gnash, despair, and howl, 
And peace and comfort raise the drooping soul, — 
And she who long did mourn as doth the dove, 
Shall be renew'd by his 11-gracious love — 
Who 'midst affliction, tyranny, and wrong, 
Made his great name her morning, ev'ning song, — 
Made him her soul's exceeding joy and strength, 
Shall dry her tears and see his face at length, — 

K 2 



132 

The dust and ashes from her head shall shake— 
From long" captivity and sorrow break, — 
Her heavy chains and banishment be loos'd, 
And the poor reed no more by fury bruis'd. 

SufTrer, whoe'er thou art, thy cares forego, 
To dwell a moment on Theresa's woe; — 
With her deep anguish thy hard fate compare, 
So half thy load of griefs shall melt to air ; 
The tear most sacred from thy weeping- eye, 
For her shall flow — its selfish source be dry, — 
Sweet sympathy thy sorrows shall divide, 
And smooth will seem thy rough tempestuous tide;— 
New energy thy aching heart acquire. 
And thou to her angelic faith aspire, — 
A holy piety shall in thee spring, 
And sooth thy anguish with its healing wing, — 



153 



And thou shalt own the dread omnific pow'r, 
Of him who guards us in affliction's hour. 



Born 'midst the splendors of a brilliant court, 
Where all the pleasures held their mimic sport, — 
Where grace, and wit, and beauty, all combine 
To fix the centre of their dazzling* shrine ; 
In whose delicious and enchanting* bow'rs, 
The bright perspective wove unfading flow'rs; — 
Potent her star seem'd with auspicious days, 
Stranger her ear to accents, save of praise. 
Alas! the mournful change who shall relate — 
Unmelted, — who her sorrows contemplate i* 
Ah ! where are now her lofty palace walls, — 
Where the bent knee which low before her falls, — 
Where are her city's proud and lofty tow'rs, — 
Or where capricious fortune's gilded bow'rs ? 



134 



Given to the spoiler's lawless, ruffian hands, 
Who tread the vine upon the wasted lands, — 
Nor prun'd, nor digg'd, the brier instead and thorn, 
Rear the wild head, and laugh the field to scorn, — 
Instead of harp, and viol, and sweet song-, 
Wont morn and eve their cadence to prolong y 
Tumultuous uproar, din, streets wash'd with blood, — 
Delug'd with streams, a crimson smoky flood, — 
That head — high rais'd upon the quivering spear, — 
Horror! 'tis hers thro' life belov'd so dear, — 

All mangled reeking in its humid gore, — 

Yet, yet the veins the vital current pour. 

Ha ! who is he with ignominious scorn, 

To death with outrage, and rude insult borne, — 

Who like a lamb goes forth to meet his foes, 

Trusting in heaven his spirit will repose - } — 



135 

'Tis he, — her Sire, in cruel triumph led, 
The curst assassin mob have doom'd him dead. — 
With anguish wild around the saintly king, 
Wife, son, and daughter in distraction cling-; 
Echoes the temple to their mournful cries, — 
Their intermingled shrieks and bitter sighs. 

Ah! what is death — is it the murd'rous knife 
That cuts the strings, and lets out sated life, — 
Frees the worn spirit for a blest abode, 
To mix with seraph, cherubim, and God? 
The parting o'er stern death, ah! where' s thy sting, — 
What terror from the yawning grave can spring? 

Her beauteous mother next th' infernal crowd, 
Drag to the death with shout exulting loud ; 



136 

She who erewhile shone like *a brilliant star, 
Diffusing radiance round her lofty sphere, — 
Her life resigns beneath the murd'rers* hands, 
Who revel in her palaces and lands. 

Not she whose virtues nwht the fierce assuage,— 
Convert to smiles of peace licentious rage, 
The mild Eliza, — could their wrath disarm, 
Or from the deeds of hellish malice charm, — • 
To royalty (her only crime) allied, 
The guiltless victim by their fury died. 

Poison the youthful heir unconscious quafFd, 
Reckless that death lurk'd in the fatal draught. 

Thus are her friends by piece-meal from her rent — 
Thus o'er and o'er her soul with anguish bent, — 



ir 



o/ 



At each belov'cl and bleeding- sacrifice, 
A living' death the lovely mourner dies; 
Unutterable woe her bosom thrills, 
Whilst God her cup with dregs or anger fills; — 
Not e'en the friendly tear to ease her pain. 
Or cool the torture of her burning brain, — 
Tears that so sweetly ease the load of grief, 
Fled from their source, withheld their kind relief: — 
From her dark prison shut heav'n's glorious day, 
Lest it might cheer her with its gladsome ray. 

Young 1 , beauteous, blooming, as the blushing- flow'r, 
Save that affliction's withering iron powV, 
Bow'd that fine form, else symmetry and grace, — 
And ravag'd with his blighting hand her face; 
Destroyed the rose that wanton'd in her cheek, 
Whilst mournful shades instead her woe bespeak. 



138 

• 

Thus long within her dungeon walls inimnr'd, 
Insult on insult, woe on woe endur'd, — 
In stupid grief, or unavailing sighs, 
Full on her mind each bleeding sacrifice, — 
Passes the joyless day, yet humble prayV, 
Saves the dear mourner from the fiend despair, — 
Her piety no chastisements can shake, 
Or cause her, her integrity forsake, — 
Trembling, she kneels before the throne of God, 
Imploring strength to bear his chastening rod, 
When half bereav'd of reason's lucid ray. 
On heav'n she call'd, and pray'd for pow'r to pray ; — 
He hears her pray'r— compassionates her fate, — 
An angel sends to burst her prison gate : — 
Love, in the gentle garb of pity drest, 
Offers a haven in his faithful breast, — 



159 

With balmy sympathy her soul beguiles, 
And guards from insult with benignant smiles ;— 
He who commands rude blasts awhile to rave, 
Deigns the poor lamb from blood and death to save, — 
Preserves to see destruction on the foe, — 
To see the mighty and the proud brought low : 
The royal exiles driv'n from strand to strand, 
At length find refuge in fair Albion's land ; — 
Whilst the fell tyrant Europe's scourge accurst, 
Whose spirit by the demons fierce was nurst, 
Usurps her murder'd father's throne and state, 
And issues to his neighbour kings their fate. 

But, hark ! what tidings float across the main, 
In haste Augusta's stately tow'rs to gain ; 
Blow fast. ye winds, check not the vessel's speed, 
Ah ! let no envious surge her pace impede : 



140 

Hark! the loud cannon speaks the welcome news, 

See joy and rapture ev'ry eye effuse ; 

He's fall'n, the tyrant — he of dread renown, — 

The God of battles hurls him headlong down, — 

He who exulted in his fiery car, — 

Scourge of the world — the friend of blood and war; 

His havoc, rapine, desolation o'er,— 

His pride, ambition, sunk for evermore ; 

The day of retribution comes at last, — 

Destruction, tyranny, and war are past; 

Th' Almighty's sov'reign arm proclaims his might, — 

AH sacred justice triumphs in the right; 

Now white wing'd peace her olive branch extends, 

Down th' Usurper to the pit descends ; 

Europe is free — the Giant's arm unnerv'd — 

For this blest day Theresa's life preserv'd : 



141 



She lives — 0! joy unhop'd— she lives to see 

Her land— -her native land fiom tvrants free, — 

To see once more her wand' ring royal race, 

Rise to the summit of their former grace, — 

The alien fugitives to exile driv'n, 

Drinking the adverse cop ordain'd by heav'n ; 

They on whose heads the dregs of wrath were pour'd, 

To freedom, liberty, and peace restor'd ;— 

So long borne down, insulted, and opprest, 

By indignation, malice, rancour, prest \ 

For he, th* Almighty, comes on clouds of fire — > 

In his dread chariot comes to deal his ire \ 

Fury and anger on the proud to heap, 

Who scorn'd his name, nor would his sabbaths keep, — 

Mock'd his decrees — his pow'r and might blasphemed, 

And greater than the Lord's his own sword deetn'd; 



142 

Who liketh' Egyptian swoll'n with rage, made boast 
To scatter desolation by his host,— 
Like him overwhelm' d by God's almighty hand, 
The scorn and outcast of fcb? exulting land : — 
She lives to see this proud, this glorious day, — 
To see th' oppressor to th' opprest give way ; 
With joy, amazement, scarce her bosom heaves, — 
Trembling she hears, and hearing scarce believes; 
Hardly her trembling nerve the news sustains, — 
Her fainting spirit scarce the spark maintains ; 
What bleeding agonies her joy divide! 
As rushes thro' her veins the flushing tide, — 
What scenes of terror borne on memory's wing, 
Does one sad glance back to her bosom bring: 
Behold the heav'nly sufFrer raise her eyes! 
Swimming in tears, to him who from the skies, 



143 

Guided the arm of the victorious host, 
Ag'ainst the spoiler and his vaunting boast; — 
Kneeling she pours her soul in pious praise, 
And owns the goodness of his wond'rous ways. 

Exalted excellence of faith sincere! 
Whose sorrows claim the sympathising tear; 
Thou bright example of religion's pow'r, 
To rise above affliction's deadliest hour;- — 
May France with rapture hail thee to her arms, 
And bow before thy soul's transcendant charms,-— 
Fondly receive thee as her dearest prize, 
Whilst tears of rapture fill the patriots' eyes; — 
May guardian angels who thro' blood and strife, 
Lean'd from their clouds to watch thy precious life, 
Still hover round thee- — crown thy path with peace — 
Each bitter sorrow from thy mind efface ; 



144 



That dearest bliss the world can give be thine, 
To see man rest beneath his spreading- vine ; 
The waving corn in rich luxuriance grow, — 
And wine and oil in streams abundant flow. 

May ev'ry child of sorrow learn from thee, 
Patient to drink the cup of misery, — 
Like thee endure thro' woe on woe to live, — 
Like thee see happiness and joy revive, — 
Like thee the soul above this world refine, 
By faith implicit in the pow'r divine, — 
Like thee the day of retribution see, 
And grief be chang'd to sweet felicity ; 
For still the Lord is faithful to restore, 
The broken-hearted who his love implore; — 
Around their form the robe of light to spread, 
Beauty for ashes sprinkle on their head; 



145 

Make the sad spirit's heaviness to fly, 
And turn their mourning* to the oil of joy, 

When blooming beauty play'd on Ellen's face g 
And conscious virtue heightened ev'ry grace; 
For, to a lovely form kind heav'n had join'd, 
The sweet emotions that adorn the mind ; 
Ere youth had reach'd its prime 'twas hers to know, 
Every distress fate can in wrath bestow ;— 
Of dearest relatives all, all, depriv'd, 
She, only she, her hapless race surviv'd; 
A faithful lover gen'rous, kind, and brave* 
Engulph'd for ever in proud Ocean's wave, 

Just within sight of lov'd Britannia's strand 
When the glad mariners descry'd the land,— 



146 

When <c welcome England's cliffs" re-echo'd round, 
And ev'ry heart exulted at the sound, — 
Some on the wings of smiling fancy borne, 
Embrac'd those friends from whom they'd long been 

torn, — 
Some to their bosoms held the widow'd wife, 
Dear as their souls — priz'd more than fame or life, — 
Some in their faithful and impatient arms, 
Clasp'd the lov'd maiden — gaz'd upon her charms, 
Whilst some fond breasts with love paternal swell'd, 
As their dear infants they in thought beheld : 
But, ah ! how soon these visions were disperse- 
How soon hope's golden images revers'd; 
For, lo! the sky a lurid aspect wears, — 
Dark roll the clouds, while thunder shakes the spheres — 
Blue livid flashes dart across the gloom, 
Seem'd as if hast'ning nature's gen'ral doom,— 



147 

Whilst Ocean's spray with deep and solemn roar,, 
Now to a mountain's height the vessel bore, — 
Now plunge her downwards with impetuous force, 
Whilst the big wares, with murm'rings loud and hoarse. 
Rush o'er her sides, and with the angry blast, 
Rend her white sails — destroy her gallant mast ;— » 
In vain to guide the ship the pilot strove, 
Encompass'd by thick darkness long she drove | 
The spirit of the deep who rides the wave, 
Deign'd not with outstretch'd hand from death to save^ 
At length the steerage and the rigging broke, — 
Furious she drives against a craggy rock; 
Now ev'ry feeble ray of hope expires, 
Some, guided only by the lighf ning's fires,. 
Plunge in the sea, — whilst others crowd the boat» 
Upon the agitated deep to float : — • 

x. 2 



148 



Alas! the raging ocean's pearly bed, 
Pillow' d full many a brave and gallant head,— 
Full many a breast ere long with hope illum'd, 
In death's encircling icy arms entomb'd. — ■ 
Ellen, the while, distracted and dismay 'd, 
Had watch'd the night away — had wept and pray'd; 
At earliest dawn all pale with fright she rose, 
And sought the beach her bosom to compose, — 
Her eager eye, she glances o'er the sea, 
Now shining in unruffl'd majesty; 
So pure, so smooth, its curling waters flow'd, — * 
So sweet the sun upon its surface glow'd, — 
That hardly might she deem the howling storm, 
Could in its rage the beauteous scene deform; 
To him who rules the waters and the skie»> 
In silent pray'r she raised her humid eyesi 



149 

Alas ! the form for which she wept and pray'd, 
In ocean's dread engulphing womb was laid,— 
Never again her longing 1 sight to greet,— 
Never to feast upon her smile so sweet ; 
Sunk the gay fabric magic hope had twin'd, — 
Flown like a shadow driv'n by the wind 5 — 
The only earthly ray that fill'd her soul, 
Whence balm she drew her sorrows to console; 
One heart with hers in unison could blend, — 
Heaven in its mercy still had left one friend,- — 
One bosom still responsive to hers glow'd, 
With pitying sympathy one eye o'erflowM : 
No, never more shall she that friend behold, — 
Never again or love, or woe, unfold, — 
No more her ear with rapture drink his vows,—? 
Never shall she become his earthly spouse; 



150 

With envious haste the evil tidings flew,— 
The melancholy truth too soon she knew ; 
Now all her visionary joys o'er cast, 
Again she bows to sorrow's chilling blast; — 
By heavy grief almost to frenzy driv'n, 
She dar'd rebel against all righteous heav'n ;~~ 
And thoughts, which once her very blood had chill'd, 
Ev'ry fine nerve to agony had thrilTd, — 
Were cherish' d often in her aching breast, 
Which knew nor comfort, nor a gleam of rest; 
Her mind enervated — its vigour broke, 
By the hard pressure of affliction's stroke, 
On death — on Suicide — she dar'd to think, — 
Hovering she stood on the tremend'ous brink, — 
Determin'd on the leap — but not resolv'd 
The mode by which the breath should be dissolved ; — 



151 

■v 

When, lo! her guardian angel of the night, 

A vision sends to put such thoughts to flight : — 

She thought all blooming as the blushing morn, 

Whilst smiles celestial his soft mien adorn, 

The youth lamented stood before her eyes, 

Circled with all the glories of the skies, — 

In his right hand a silver lute was plac'd, 

His head a burnish'd crown of sapphire grac'd,— - 

Long flow'd his robes of dove-like snowy white y 

And downy pinions seem'd prepar'd for flight,— 

His looks benign with tender pity glow'd, 

Whilst his sweet accents thus harmonious flow'd.— 

i 

" Ellen, thou once lov'd idol of my soul, 
" From heav'n I come thy sorrow to console,-* 
" From vast extended ever smiling plains, 
tf Where sweet symphonious and delicious strain^ 



152 



" From cherubim all cloth' d with wing 1 of fire, 

" And beauteous seraphim who fill the choir, — 

u Tune evermore God's praise— their sole delight, 

u With faces veil'd, to sing his pow'r and might, — 

" Whose glorious splendor by no circle bound, 

a Fills the free courts— shines endless all around ; 

" I come, my fair, thy precious soul to save, — 

u To shield thee from a voluntary grave ; 

" Alas ! sweet maid, thy meditated crime, — 

u Thy grief for me o'er clouds these joys sublime ; 

" What tho' on life's probationary shore, 

" My earthly temple lives and breathes no more, — 

" What tho' beneath the surges of the deep, 

" Kind angels lull'd me to a peaceful sleep; 

" My spirit darted from the oozy bed, 

u And to the joys of heav'n ecstatic fled, — 



153 

fcC Joys all celestial, pare from guilt renVd,— » 

u Joys unconceivM by mortal — undefin'd ; 

*' Such as nor eye hath seen, nor tongue reveal'd, 

u From all but disembodied souls conceal'd; — 

" There angels with kind salutations hail, 

" As on ethereal clouds they lightly sail, — 

" There the afflicted, tempest-tost, find peace, — 

" There persecutions, cares, and sorrows cease, — 

66 Disease there never wings his wounding dart, 

u Nor death united friends can ever part, — 

iC There malice, treach'ry, guile, are never found, 

si No baleful envy springs in holy ground, 

" But universal and benignant love, 

* Soft, kind, and innocent as gentle dove: 

" Believe me at thy fall the happy host, 

u Saints, seraphs, angels, of th' empyrean coast, 



154 

66 Would mourn,— whilst with a hellish and malig- 
nant voice, 
" The fiends below would triumph and rejoice; 
" Long* have they sought thy faith to undermine, 
w And turn thy spirit from the pow'r divine; 
46 Faintly Religion the dispute maintain'd, 
tc Else had they ne'er such empire o'er thee gain'd ;- 
H O ! turn thee, turn thee, to her sacred shield, 
" Again delighted rove her argent field; 
" O ! take thy fill of those delicious flow'rs, — 
" Those spicy roots that spring within her bow'rs ; 
" ! fly thee to her white and shelt'ring wings, 
" So will she waft thee to the King of Kings. 

?• Say, would'st thou by despairing sorrow driv'n, 
« Barter eternal peace and rest in heav'n, — 



155 



fl An all-avenging righteous God offend, 

f* Nor bear the chast'ning of thy only friend \ 

" \ would'st thou stain thy yet unblemish'd name, — 

ff Leave a reproach on thy unsullied fame,— 

ff Sanction a guilt, by saints, by men abhorr'd, 

" More than all other crimes upon record : — 

"By thy example Jed numbers shall fall, 

u For whose sad crimes justice on thee shall call; 

ff Sure, will they say, so pure, so just a mind, 

" Where innocence with piety combin'd, 

H Would not have forfeited eternal peace, 

" To bid her momentary sorrows cease : — 

f Thus they who from the crime with horror fled, 

f 1 To sin by thy example shall be led. 

" Ah! then, sweet Ellen, shun the gulph profound, 
u Nor let the hopes of hell by thee be crown'd j 



156 

<c Would'st thou with Sappho's, Dido's angry ghosts, 
" A- hideous spectre glide its dreary coasts ; — 
" Unblest thro' shades of night they constant rove, 
M Gnawed by the torments of revenge and love: 
" Say dost thou wish thy fate from mine to sever, 
" Never to be united — never — never ; — 
" 0! might thy dazzled eyes the heavens behold, 
u Or were it mine their glories to unfold, — 
" Could'st thou the melting lutes of angels hear, 
" So sweetly exquisite, so full and clear, — 
" Then wouldst thou deem ages of earthly pain, 
" Too short those glorious regions to attain." 
Thrs said, his finger pointed to the skies, 
Th' astonish'd Ellen upward cast her eyes, 
Thence beauteous angels, all in groups descend, 
And from her ravish' d sight convey her friend -> — 



157 

All calm and peaceful as the new-born day, 
When forth Aurora sends her blushing ray; 
Th' awaken'd maiden thankful finds her breast, 
And to th* Almighty's ear this pray'r addrest. — 

" O God! before thy throne I prostrate kneel, 
" Trusting thy mercy will my pardon seal ; — 
" Thy will be done — to thee I humbly bow, 
" Who is all good, all wise, all just, but thou! 
" Yet have I dared against thee to repine,— 
" Question'd thy goodness, and thy pow'r divine ; 
" Wretch that I am ! a poor unworthy thing,-— 
" Have dar'd accuse heavVs awful sovereign King \ 
"Alas! with sin, with guilt, and mischief fraught ; 
iC Murder — self-murder has employ'd my thought :— 
* 4 Father! with penitence, to thee I pray, 
" Thou, thro' thy Son, wilt wash my crime away 5 



i 158 

€C 0! condescend to purify my soul, — 
cc Bend my proud spirit to thy blest controul,~ 
" Try me, reprove me, with thy chast'ning hand^ 
" Nor let me violate thy least command; 
" Ever be present to my wond'ring eyes, 
" Th' amazing distance that between us lies, — 
* Thou, all perfection, majesty, and might, 
" Fountain of life, of spirit, and of light, — 
rt Thou all sublime and dread infinity > — 
H I, a poor worm, a creature form'd by thee, — 
" Trembling with rev'rence, with awe and shame, 
<c I own the splendor of thy sov'reign name,— 
11 Henceforth be thou my morning, evening song,— • 
" My soul refresh, and make my spirit strong,— 
My rock— salvation, deck'd with glory bright, — 
My tow'r — my safeguard, and exceeding might : 



a 



159 

" Dread Lord! auspicious to my wishes prove, 

u And fill my breast with draughts of heav'nly love, 

c< To taste thy glories let my spirit thirst, 

u Then, tho' thy raging thunders o'er me burst, — 

a Tho' every pestilence on earth assail, 

" To shake my piety — they all shall fail ; 

u Each thought — each wish — each hope to thee 

still soar, 
<c Every desire tkee rightly to adore,— 
M The heavenly banquet of thy love to taste, 
" And share with angels thy eternal feast,- — 
4< With them attune the sweet melodious lyre, 
" Thyself the theme the circle to inspire." 

FINIS. 



-/ 



NOTES TO THE FIRST PART. 



PAGE 14, LINE 7. 

Who more than perfect Job awhile chastised. 

The integrity, the faith, and patience of that holy 
and truly devout man, when the Almighty gave him into 
the hand of his adversary Satan, by whose influence, 
not only his spirit was sorely wounded within him by the 
heaviest and most insupportable calamities with which 
man could be tempted ; but his mortal frame also afflicted 
with the most excruciating tortures, from the crown of 
liis head to the sole of his foot: are delineated in a 
strain of such exquisite beauty and sublimity in sacred 
writ, that every heart must be forcibly and sensibly affected 
by the pathetic yet lofty recital. 

Deprived of every ray of worldly comfort, when, from 
the intolerable weight of his corporeal sufferings, his 



162 



very existence was burthensome to him, he still preserves 
his patient dependence upon the will of Iris Creator : 
fi Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall 
we not receive evil I" says the pious and resigned suf- 
ferer, when advised by his wife to curse his God and die ; 
and when his sorrows were, if possible, encreased by the 
revilings and reproaches of his friends : " Though he 
slay me (says he) yet will I trust in him," and again " Till 
I die, I will not remove mine integrity from me." 

Surely if they who are apt to despond and shrink from 
the touch of earthly calamity were to dwell upon the 
accumulated sorrows which rested upon the head of this 
upright man; the reflection of his patience, integrity, 
his humility and immoveable faith in his Creator, would 
excite in their languid and doubting spirits a spark of 
his divine flame, and soaring on the wings of angelic 
faith and obedience to the footstool of him in whose 
hands is the breath of man ; they would blush at their 
former murmuring* and rebellions, and fixing their hopes 
there, where true happiness is only to be found, learn to 
bear with smiling patience their portion of earthly af- 
flictions. 



163 

PAGE 19, LINE 13, 

Lamented Chatterton, his faith foregoes. 

The rash crime of the desperate and unfortunate Chat- 
terton, who terminated his existence by swallowing poison, 
was preceded by his avowed abandonment of his Chris- 
tian tenets ; — " I am glad (says he, in a letter to a friend) 
that you derive comfort in your affliction, from Christianity, 
for my own part. I am no longer a Christian." The re- 
nunciation of his faith was doubtless the source of that 
despair which led him at first to cherish the design, and 
afterwards, when reduced to the lowest ebb of penury, to 
perpetrate the terrific crime of self-destruction ; disap- 
pointed of those views which the consciousness of th« 
superiority of his genius had taught him to expect, his 
stability begun to waver, which too fatally ended in his 
total dereliction from Christianity. 

page 21, line 10. 

GoaVs mercy, fove, and justice sweetly sung* 

His verses upon resignation are at once devout and 
beautiful, nor can they ever be read without exciting 

m 2 



Wi 



admiration and pity ; for who can cease to regret that a 
mind, where a combination of talents, and the most sub- 
Erne images of the mercy and justice of his Creator were 
so happily blended, should yet become so corrupt and 
weak as to throw off his faith and allegiance to his only 
friend, to that God who hath graciously promised never to 
leave or forsake those who trust in him. 

The frailties, the vices, the errors, and crimes of the 
departed, except they can be held up . as a beacon to 
prevent others from sinking in the same gulph, or 
dashing against the same rock, should either be touched 
by a very gentle and merciful hand, or remain for ever 
buried beneath the veil of oblivion. 
» 

I trust, however, that notwithstanding the many elegiac 
and pathetic poems which have been written, not only in 
honor of the extraordinary fine genius of the unfortunate 
Chatterton, but to palliate his desperate and violent 
death, my bringing forward the impatience and despair 
which led to rebellion and revolt so foul and abominable, 
will not be condemned as a want of feeling and commisera- 
tion for the sufferings and conflicts that a mind like his must 
have endured before it could determine on so awful a 
catastrophe. My only aim is to elucidate, as powerfujly 



165 



as possible, the subject on which I have ventured to 
write, by opposing characters of resignation and sub- 
mission, to those Avhose discontent and secret repinings 
have caused them to fly in the face of God, and cast away* 
with insolent disdain, the greatest blessing that he can 
bestow, life, and the power of living for everlasting 
happiness and glory. 



PAGE 23, JLl}iE 7. 

Hears not his wandering shade his mother's groan. 

How admirable and amiable would it have been m 
Chatter ton to have contributed, by following his profes- 
sion, to the support of his indigent mother and sister ; for 
however disagreeable and disgusting the avocation of an 
attorney to a mind exalted, and a genius brilliant as his ; 
yet the delightful consciousness of making any sacrifice 
in so interesting and noble a cause, would have gone far 
towards reconciling him to the obscurity of his fate : and 
greater lustre would have been reflected on his name by 
conduct so virtuous and laudable, than all the produc- 
tions of genius and talent could ever acquire. Besides, he 
might still have found leisure to cultivate the Muses, and 
to indulge, in some degree, in those favorite and elegant 



166 



pursuits to which his ardent mind and brilliant imagination 
naturally led him : and might eventually have attained 
that celebrity and distinction upon which he seems to have 
built his only hopes of happiness. 



page 24, line 11. 

Felt his rapt spirit and his lofty mind. 

" Thjere is something even in the mighty tempest, 
" and the hoary waste, abrupt and deep, stretched o'er 
" the buried earth, which raises the mind to a serious 
" sublimity, favourable to every thing great and noble r 
" there is scarcely any earthly object gives me more, I do 
" not know if I should call it pleasure, but something 
" which exalts me, something which enraptures me, than 
c c to walk on the shady side of a wood or high planta- 
< { tion, in a cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind 
" howling among the trees, and raving over the plains ; 
" it is my best season for devotion, my mind is wrapt up 
<c in a kind of enthusiasm to him who in the pompous 
" language of the Hebrew bard, walks on the wings of 
" the wind." 

These are the sentiments of poor Burns, whose fate, 
notwithstanding his continual and lamentable aberrations 



167 



from the path of rectitude, must excite compassion in 
every liberal and feeling mind, as he seems, under the 
cloud of obscurity and penury in which his whole life 
was involved, never to have forsaken his faith and trust 
in Providence. 



page 25, line 7. 

I long (says he) to lay my weary head. 

In a letter to his father written in his youth (says he) 
" I long to lay my head upon my mother earth, and to 
" go where * virtue sole exists.' " 

In the same letter he mentions with the most devout 
enthusiasm the comfort and consolation he derived from 
the three last verses of the 7th Chapter of the Revela 
tions, which for the promise of future felicity they con- 
tain, afford him (he says) more real satisfaction and 
pleasure than any other part of the holy scripture. 

15. " Therefore are they before the throne of God, 
" and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he 
" that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 

16. " They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 



168 



* more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any 
" heat. 

17. " For the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
" throne shall feed them, and shall lead them into living 
" fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all 
" tears from their eyes." 

His prayer on the pr&spect of death, is beautifully and 
devoutly expressive of the internal conviction of, and 
penitence for, his own follies and vices, and of the mercy 
and forgiveness of God ; which there is no doubt has 
long since been extended to him, or that his great 
and lofty spirit, purified from the frailties and infirmities 
to which " flesh is heir," is now drawing its felicity and 
glory from the living fountains of waters, from which 
he derived his faith and hope in the hour of earthly 
adversity. 



page 32, line 11. 

Th' Italian bard so honored, lov'd, renown' d. 

The unfortunate passion which Petrarch conceived for 
the beautiful and interesting Laura, led him to seclude 
himself from a world in which he had made so con- 



169 



spicuous and brilliant a figure, but not to consume his 
days in the gloom and desertion of solitude, he cultivated 
his mind and talents in his retirement at Vaucluse with 
the most persevering" ardor and assiduity. By his inces- 
sant endeavours to subdue his hopeless passion, he 
acquired a sublimity and richness of imagination which 
distinguished his character ; he rescued some of the 
finest works of ancient literature from the dust and 
oblivion in which, from the barbarity of the times, they 
had long been buried, and many of those admired trea- 
sures, which have since contributed to delight and instruct 
mankind, were discovered by his industry, corrected by 
his learning, and multiplied in accurate copies at his 
expence ; he was the great restorer of elegant and true 
taste, and by his own compositions, equal to any that 
ancient Rome produced, purified the public mind, re- 
formed the manners of the age, and extirpated the pre- 
judices of the times, pursuing his studies with unre- 
mitting firmness to the hour of his death. 

His Biographers tell us, that besides being crowned 
three times at Rome, as the most elegant Poet of his age, 
he was not only a correct and classical historian, but 
an able statesman, to whom the most celebrated sove- 
reigns of his age confided the most difficult negoeia~ 
tions. 



170 



A sovereign of France, a king of Naples, a crowd of 
cardinals, the greatest princes, and the most illustrious 
nobility of Italy, cultivated his friendship, and solicited 
his correspondence, and were anxious to employ him in 
the several capacities of statesman, minister and am- 
bassador. 

Determined to subdue the passion which had enervated 
his mind, he abandoned the soft and effeminate style in 
which he had sung the charms of his mistress, and 
roused his soul to the greatest exploits. In an elegant 
oration worthy of Demosthenes or Cicero, he endeavour- 
ed to compose the jarring interests of Italy, and exhorted 
the contending powers to destroy, with their confederated 
arms, the barbarians, those common enemies of their 
country, who were ravaging its very bosom, and preying 
on its vitals ; and at a moment when he declared that 
his mind was distracted with vexation, his heart torn with 
love, and his soul disgusted with men and measures, so 
great was his ascendancy over himself, that he negociated 
an affair of the greatest difficulty at the court of Naples 
for Clement the Sixth, in which he succeeded to the 
highest satisfaction of his employer. 



171 



PAGE 38, LINE 5. 

At dead of night (says he) her shade appears, 

" Three times, in the middle of the night, when every 
" door was closed, she appeared to me at the foot of my 
<< bed, as if confident of the power of her charms ; fear 
" spread a chilling dew over my limbs, my blood thrilled 
" through my veins towards my heart ; rising before day 
" break, I hastily left my house, and run wildly through 
" the woods, alas ! I could find no asylum : places the 
" most sequestered presented her to my view ; I beheld 
" her issuing from the hollow trunk of a tree, the con- 
c* cealed source of a spring, or the dark cavity of a 
" broken rock." 

The violence of his love for Laura is powerfully 
manifested by this wild paroxysm, and the success with 
which he sought to compose his mind by the influence of 
religion and reason is as powerfully evinced in his con- 
duct; for, although he never conquered his passion, 
having cherished the most sincere and ardent affection 
for Laura, during twenty-one years of her life, and 
twenty-six after her death ; yet he so far subdued and 
brought it under control by the never failing support of 



172 



reason and religion, that instead of depressing— it seems 
to have exalted and strengthened his mind. 



PAGE 39, LINE 11. 

Father of keav'n, oh ! pity my lost state. 

In one of his beautiful sonnets which I have endea- 
voured to imitate, he pathetically bewails the length of 
time which he had madly wasted in struggling with his 
fate, and invokes the aid of his God and Saviour to 
exalt and refine his soul above worldly passion. 



page 41, line 9. 

<dnd when his Laura from a world of care. 

In another sonnet, composed after the death of his be- 
loved and lamented Laura, he thus expresses himself. 

" If honorable and virtuous love ever merited a reward, 
" I shall obtain the recompence of a constancy of affec- 
" tion, which towards that dear object was as pure as 
" the light of heaven ; once she doubted that assertion, 
" and was uncertain as to the end and object of my love, 
" but now that her blessed spirit can from its heavenly 



173 



" mansion behold my heart and inmost soul, I hope she 
" compassionates my suffering's and constancy ; oft I see 
" her in my dreams regarding me with looks of tender- 
" ness and angelic benignity, and I fondly hope that 
" when I shall have laid aside this garb of mortality, my 
" Laura will welcome me to those blest abodes where 
" the true followers of Christ shall dwell together in 
" happiness." 

And again, alluding to his own death, in what an 
enthusiastic and sublime strain does he express his anti- 
cipation of eternal happiness, and the ardent longings of 
his spirit for the desired moment. 

" O ! delightful day, when issuing from this dark and 
" earthly prison, when throwing off the spoils of mor- 
" tality, and bursting from this cloud of sorrow and 
" darkness into the splendor of eternal light, I am ad- 
" mitted at once into the presence of my God, and of 
" the dear object of my love." 



END OF NOTES TO PART FIRST, 



NOTES TO THE SECOND FART. 



PAGE 45, LINE 7. 

Their forms expose beneath his raging fires. 

It is a part of the worship of the Brarains to stand 
with their faces turned upwards towards the sun, when 
his beams strike with the most intolerable and burning 
heat upon them, when even the beasts, unable to support 
his fiery rays, seek the shelter of the forest 

page 48, line 9. 

His hope that plunging in the holy wave. 

The Indians are taught to believe that by voluntarily 
seeking their own deaths by drowning in the holy river 
Ganges, the defilements of sin and guilt are washed 
away, and that their spirits are immediately conveyed by 
the angel of death to the delights of Paradise : suicide 



176 



is therefore frequently practiced amongst them from 
praise- worthy, but mistaken motives. 



page 48, line 13. 

The hapless widow of Malabar } s coast. 

Women in this country have been known to devote 
themselves for a long" time to the most humiliating and 
hardest labour,* in order to collect the sums required for 
this extravagant suicide ; for it is necessary that it be 
executed with great magnificence and expence. 

A Bramin's widow, young, beautiful, and engaging, 
was desirous of exhibiting this tragic scene at Surat, but 
her solicitations were not complied with The lady, full 
of indignation, took a handful of burning coals, and, 
seemingly regardless of the pain, said in a firm tone to 
the Nabob : " Consider not alone the tenderness of my 
" age and of my sex, see with what insensibility I hold 
" this fire in my hands, and know that with equal con- 
" stancy I shall throw myself into the flames." 

Abbe Raynal. 



177 

TAGE 50, LINE 15- 

So in the pagan unenlightened dang. 

They who had no certain guide to fix their dependence 
upon as to a state of futurity, must have combined their 
whole ideas of happiness with the delights and blessings 
of this world ; their conduct, therefore, in immolating 
their lives from motives of patriotism, or any other mo- 
tives which they conceived to be noble and virtuous, was 
very opposite from that gloom and despair which arises 
from selfish considerations, and is the cause of the Sui- 
cides of the present enlightened age. 

PAGE 51, LINE 7. 

See noble Curtius take the leap profound, 

The well known Roman tradition of the oracle having 
foretold that until the noblest blood in Rome was sacri- 
ficed, peace could not be obtained; Curtius, a noble 
young Roman, leapt into an abyss which immediately 
closed upon him, 



178 

PAGE 55, LINE 9. 

Mark/ whence arose that shriek of wild despair. 

The grief and anguish of the widow who is bereaved 
of a beloved husband, by so horrible an event as suicide, 
has so many sources to flow from, that the strongest rea- 
son, even religion, can scarcely tranquillise the high 
wrought misery : that he should expire in the commission 
of the highest act of guilt, rebelling against his Creatoiy 
h a reflection too melancholy and agonising to be borne. 

How insupportable is the conviction that the object to 
whom she thought herself most dear, and to whom she 
was so tenderly and strongly attached, held her peace and 
happiness in so little estimation, as Voluntarily and deli- 
berately to sacrifice them to his own selfish impatience, 
leaving her to the thousand miseries which await an un- 
protected woman ; yet, notwithstanding these considera- 
tions, how many instances have we of men, who having 
ruined their fortunes either by gaming or some other absurd 
speculation, put a period to their existence, leaving wife 
and children to all the consequent horrors, exposed to 
difficulties, embarrassments, penury, insults, oppression, 
misery the most complicated, and inextricable-misery for 
which there is no balm in Gilead ; which time and reflec- 



179 



tlon, aided by that never failing specific in all other cases, 
(prayer) cannot efface, because the awful thought that iri 
" the grave there is no repentance," must be combined 
with every effort that piety and religion would make to 
recover the tranquillity of the soul. 



page 69, LINE lo 
3Iethought the poisonous draught in haste I drunk, 

I am actually acquainted with a person who dreamt she 
had swallowed poison, and descended to the Tartarean 
lakes ; nor are my powers of description at all equal to 
the horrible account she gave of the dismal scene. 

page 72, line 3. 

Thou'rt doomed to act the bloody story o'er. 

The idea here meant to be conveyed, is not that the bare 
act of shooting, or swallowing poison could operate as a 
punishment, for a crime so enormous as taking life out of 
the hands of Him who gave it ; but from the offenders 
having previously had a view of the horrible abode to 
Which they were, immediately after the execution of their 

n 2 



180 



desperately wicked deed to be plunged : this association 
being annexed to the perpetration of the crime, together 
with the dreadful, dark, and gloomy state of the soul 
when shuddering on the brink of eternity, covered with a 
sin of the deepest dye, must surely be appalling and 
terrific. The punishment, however, which I have inflicted 
on these unhappy spirits, by causing them to be evermore 
re-acting their crime, contrasted with Boccace T s story (in 
which he makes the lover who died by his own hands, in 
consequence of the scorn of a cruel lady, eternally pur- 
suing her after her death with the fiercest tortures) is 
comparative happiness. For those who may not have 
read, or do not recollect either the original or translation, 
I will subjoin a passage from Dryden descriptive of the 
revenge of the spectre-lover, who is represented mounted on 
a coal-black steed, sword in hand, following and cheering 
to the chace two gaunt mastiffs, who were pursuing a 
beauteous maid through a thicket choked with briars and 
brambles. 

" Her face, her hands, her naked limbs were torn, 
" With passing thro' the brakes and prickly thorn ; 
" Two mastiffs, gaunt and grim, her flight pursu'd, 
" And oft their fasten' d fangs in blood embru'd, — 
" Oft they came up and pinch' d her tender side, 
" Mercy ! O, mercy heav'n ! she ran and cried > 



181 



When heav'n was nam'd they loos'd their hold again, 
Then sprung she forth — they follow' d her amain ; 



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" What did I not her stubborn heart to gain, 
u But all my vows were answered with disdain ; 
■" She scorned my sorrows and despised my pain : 
" Long time I dragg'd my days in fruitless care, 
" Then loathing life, andplung'd in deep despair, 
ft To finish my unhappy life I fell 
u On this sharp sword, and now am damn'd in hell. 



" Short was her joy, for soon th' unhappy maid, 
u By heav'n' s decree, in this cold grave was laid, 
a And as in unrepented sin she died, 
u Doom'd to the same bad place is punish'd for her pride ; 
" Because she deemed I well desery'd to die, 
" And made a merit of her cruelty : 
" There then we met, both try'd, and both were cast, 
u And this irrevocable sentence pass'd : — 
" That she whom 1 so long pursu'd in vain, 
" Should suffer from my hands a ling" ring pain ; 
" Renew'd to life that she might daily die, — 
" I daily doom'd to follow, — she to fly ; 
" No more a lover, but a mortal foe, 
" I seek her life (for love is none below) , 



I 



182 



u As often as my dogs with better speed 

" Arrest her flight, is she to death decreed ; 

" Then with this fatal sword on which I died, 

" I pierce her open back or tender side, 

" And tear that harden'd heart from out her breast, 

* 6 Which, with her entrails, makes my hungry hounds a 

feast ; 
" Nor lives she Jong, but as the fates ordain, 
" Springs up to life, and fresh to second pain, — 
" Is saved to day, to-morrow to be slain, ) 

" This, versM in death th'infernal knight relates, 
" And then, for proof, fulfill' d the common fates : 
" Her heart and bowels through her back he drew, 
" And fed the hounds that help'd him to pursue, — 
" Stern look'd the fiend as frustrate of his will, — 
" Not half sufhVd, and greedy yet to kill ; 
" And now the soul, expiring through the wound, 
" Had left the body breathless on the ground, 
" When thus the grisly spectre spoke again, — 
" Behold the fruit of ill rewarded pain ; 
" As many months as I sustain'd her hate, 
" So many years i-s she condemned by fate 
" To daily death ; and ev'ry several place, 
" Conscious of her disdain and my disgrace, — 
" Must witness her just punishment, and see 
" A scene of triumph and revenge to me : 



183 



s< As in this grove I took my last farewell,— 

" As on this very spot of earth I fell, 

" As Friday saw me die, so she my prey 

" Becomes, ev'n here, on this revolving day : 

" Thus while he spoke the virgin from the ground, 

" Upstarted fresh, already clos'd the wound, 

" And unconcern' d for all she felt before, 

u Precipitates her flight along the shore, 

" The hell-hounds, as ungorg'd with flesh and blood, 

" Pursue their prey, and seek their wonted food, 

" The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace, 

" And all the vision vanish' d from the place." 



END OF NOTES TO PART SECOND. 



NOTES TO THE THIRD PART. 



PAGE 81, LINE 1. 

Judas, the traitor, with a holy sign. 

The bare thought of suicide seems fit only to enter 
minds dark, gloomy, and treacherous, like that of Judas, 
whose sordid and avaricious soul prompted him to betray 
his blessed and divine Master. Life, indeed, must have 
been an insupportable burden to him, since, barbarian 
and monster as he was, he could «ot quiet the stings 
of his terrified and upbraiding conscience : the awful 
and tremendous signs that followed the crucifixion of the 
Saviour of the World, convinced him, as well as many 

others, that He was the Son of God. 

* 

No wonder that horror and despair, too great for mortal 
to endure, should have accompanied this conviction. 



186 



Treachery and hypocrisy to an earthly friend, even in 
the basest and most ignoble minds, must sooner or later 
be followed by remorse and shame ; for although the 
whisperings of conscience may be lulled for a while, they 
cannot be extinguished, but will eventually smite the 
arch-deceiver. 

What then must have been the state of that mind when 
awakened to repentance and remorse, which had been 
treacherous to his heavenly Master ; yet even in this 
desperate and deplorable situation, his laying violent hands 
upon himself was an aggravation of his crime, — humilia- 
tion, prayer, and penitence during the remaining years 
God in his mercy might have vouchsafed him, might at 
length have brought comfort and hope to his guilty and 
despairing soul, and the example of heart-felt penitence 
and self-abasement have been productive of much good. 



page 87, line 9. 
Ah ! what can may, the creature of a day. 

" I, even I, am he that comforteth you ; who art thou 
" that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and 
" of the son of man which shall be made as grass ? 



187 



<l And forgettest the Lord tby maker, that hath 
u stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of 
tt the earth, and hast feared continually every day because 
M of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy, and 
rt where is the fury of the oppressor.' 1 

ISAIAH, CH, h\ VER, 1*2, 13. 



PAGE 88, LINE 7. 

When royal Dar\is signed the rash decree. 

The power of the ever living God, the King of heaven, 
over that of the kings of the earth, as well as in many 
other instances is beautifully illustrated in the miraculous 
preservation of his faithful servant Daniel ; who although 
cast into a den of hungry lions came out unhurt; and 
notwithstanding the age of miracles is past, God will ever 
deal just as kindly and mercifully to his faithful servants, 
by protecting them from the snares and treachery of the 
wicked ; or if he in his wisdom suffer them to fall into 
the net that is spread for them, he will yet shew his m -rey 
and compassion by exalting and subliming their spirits 
above their adversaries, and every effort that can be made 
to destroy their peace. 



188 

PAGE 90, LINE 3. 

For, lo ! God sends his blessed angel forth. 

" My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions 
" mouths, that they have not hurt me ; forasmuch as before 
" him innocency was found in me, and also before thee, 
" O ! king, have I done no hurt." 

DANIEL, CH. Vi. VER. 22. 
PAGE 91, LINE 15. 

Let all men tremble at his mighty name. 

" I make a decree, that in every dominion of my king- 
u dom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel ; for 
" He is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his king- 
" dom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion 
" shall be even unto the end. 

" He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs 
" and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered 
" Daniel from the power of the lions." 

verses 26, 27. 



189 

PAGE 92, LINE 15. 

Had he of France the sacred page but sought. 

In a book called " Varieties of Literature," may be 
found the following account of Boissy, the French dramatic 
poet. 

Boissy, the author of several dramatic pieces which 
were received with applause, met with the common fate 
of those who give themselves up to the Muses: he la- 
boured and toiled unremittedly ; his works procured him 
fame, but no bread ; he languished with a wife and child 
under the pressures of the extremest poverty. 

Melancholy as his situation was, he lost nothing of that 
pride which is peculiar to genius, whether great or small ; 
he could not creep and fawn at the feet of a patron ; he 
had friends who would have administered relief to him, 
but they were not made acquainted with his real condition, 
or had not friendly impetuosity enough to force their as- 
sistance upon him. 

" Boissy became a prey to distress and despondency. 
" The shortest way to rid himself at once from all his 
" misery seemed to him to be death. Death appeared to 



190 



" him as a friend, as a saviour and deliverer ; and gained 
" his affection. His tender spouse, who was no less 
" weary of life, listened with participation when he de- 
" claimed with all the warmth of poetic rapture of deli- 
" verance from this earthly prison, and of the smiling 
" prospects of futurity ; and at length resolved to accom- 
" pany him in death. But she could not bear to think 
" of leaving her beloved son, of five years old, in a world 
" of misery and sorrow ; it was therefore agreed to take 
" the child along with them on their passage into another 
" and a better. 

" They were now firmly resolved to die. But what 
" mode of death should they adopt ? They made choice 
" of the most horrible— of starving : accordingly they 
" waited, in their solitary and deserted apartment, their 
" dear deliverer death, in his most ghastly form. Their 
" resolution, their fortitude were immoveable. 

" They locked the door, and began to fast. When 
" any one came and knocked, they fled trembling into 
" the corner, and were in perpetual dread lest their pur- 
" pose should be discovered. Their little son, who had 
" not yet learnt to silence the calls of hunger by artificial 
" reasons, whimpering and crying, asked for bread ; but 
" they always found means to quiet him. 



191 



" It occurred to one of Boissy's friends, that it was 
" very extraordinary he should never find him at home. 
" At first he thought the family were removed ; but, on 
" being assured of the contrary, he grew more uneasy. 
" He called several times in one day ; always nobody at 
" home ! At last he biirst open the door. — Oh what a 
" sight ! 

" He saw his friend, with his wife and son, lying on 
" a bed, pale and emaciated, scarcely able to utter a 
" sound. The boy lay in the middle, and the husband 
'" and wife had their arms thrown over him. The child 
" stretched out his little hands towards his deliverer, and 
" his first word was — bread ! It was now the third day 
" that not a morsel of food had entered his lips. 

" The parents lay still in a perfect stupor; they had 
" never heard the bursting open of the door, and felt 
te nothing of the embraces of thoir agitated friend. Their 
" wasted eyes were directed towards the boy; and the 
" tenderest expressions of pity were in the look with 
u Which they had last beheld him, and still saw him 
" dying. 

" Their friend hastened to take measures for their de- 
" liverance; but could not succeed without difficulty, 



192 



" They thought they had already done with all the tron- 
" bles of the world ; and were suddenly terrified at being' 
" forced into them again ! Void of sense and reflection, 
" they submitted to the attempts that were made to restore 
" them to life. At length their friend hit upon the most 
" efficacious means. He took the child from their arms, 
" and thus called up the last spark of paternal and ma- 
" ternal tenderness. He gave the child to eat ; who with 
" one hand held his bread, and with the other alternately 
" shook his father and mother ; his piteous moans roused 
" them at length from their deathlike slumber. It seemed 
" at once to awaken a new love of life in their hearts, 
" when they saw that their child had left the bed and 
" their embraces. 

" Nature did her office. Their friend procured them 
" strengthening broths, which he put to their lips with 
" the utmost caution, and did not leave them till every 
" symptom of restored life was fully visible. Thus were 
" they saved. 

" This transaction made much noise in Paris, and at 
" length reached the ears of the Marchioness de Pompa- 
" dour. Boissy's deplorable situation moved her. She 
" immediately sent him a hundred louis d'ors, and soon 
6t after procured him the profitable place of comtrolleur 



193 



" da Mercure de France, with a pension for his wife and 
u child, if they outlived him." 



PAGE 98, LINE 5. 

Like the lone spirit of the mountain storm. 

The following lines were suggested to my imagination 
from the recollection of an anecdote which I actually heard 
related • the mind of the unfortunate lady in question had 
been so agonised and distressed by having dwelt too much 
upon the deceit and treachery of a person in whom she had 
confided, that in a moment of melancholy and depression 
withdrawing her hope and confidence from God, she 
impiously determined to rush from a world in which she 
had sought in vain for a mind congenial with her own, 
and in order to the perpetration of her premeditated 
crime, had walked at midnight to the banks of a river, 
when being overtaken by a tremendous storm, and the 
solemnity and awfulness of the scene being heightened 
by the time, she considered it* as the voice of an angry 
God warning her to desist from her guilty intention ; 
instantaneously and powerfully struck with remorse and 
contrition, she tremblingly sought her home, and col- 
lecting the scattered and feeble energies of her depressed 



194 



mind, threw herself at the footstool of Him who alone 
can give strength to the weak ; and according to the 
gracious promises vouchsafed in scripture, her strength 
became renewed like the eagle's, and many years of tran- 
quillity and happiness were granted her. 



PAGE 119, LINE 11. 

Whilst fate is weaving wreaths of joy. 

Numerous instances have occurred of impatient, vio- 
lent, or desponding characters, who having destroyed 
themselves from seeing their favorite designs and pursuits 
thwarted and opposed, or to their misjudging sight, for 
ever blasted; might, had they continued in existence a 
short time longer, have seen every impediment to their 
wishes removed, and have found themselves, by some 
unexpected turn of fortune, in full possession of all that 
their most sanguine hopes had desired, — for who, save 
him that guideth and ruleth the affairs of the earth, can 
foresee its changes. 



END OF NOTES TO THE THIRD PART, 



NOTES TO THE FOURTH PART. 



PAGE 132, LINE 6. 

To dwell a moment on Theresa's woe. 

The accumulated and poignant sorrows, the long-suf- 
feringy and the saint-like patience of the amiable and 
interesting Duchesse d'Angouleme, whilst they excite 
the commiseration and admiration of every reflecting 
mind, may also operate as a salutary antidote against 
the impatience and rebellion of those, who being afflicted 
and tried in a much smaller degree, yet think the cup of 
sorrow ordained for them is intolerable and insupportable, 
that their fate is harder, their cup more bitter than that of 
any other individual, which mistaken imagination generally 
leads to despondency, an ungrateful thanklessness for the 
blessings and enjoyments within their reach, and, finally 
a contempt of life, and defiance of that God in whose 

o 2 



196 



hands is their fate, and who, in his own good time, would 
doubtless either alleviate the weight of the burden, with 
which, in his wisdom, he tries his creatures, or render 
the bitter draught sweet and pleasant to the taste, — and 
surely, 'tis 



■" Nobler in the mind to suffer 



" The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
" Than to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
" And by opposing, end them." — 

" When all the blandishments of life are gone, 

" The coward sneaks to death — the brave live on." 

The grand secret of the " golden Alchemy" is only to 
be extracted from the fiery furnace of affliction, nor can 
the humble, the resigned, and faithful ever fail to receive 
the power of turning evil into good, and having thus 
" overcome the world," they will enjoy a happiness and 
serenity, of which the more prosperous and fortunate 
cannot even form an idea. 



197 



PAGE 134, LINE 9. 

That head — high raised upon the quivering spear, 

After the ferocious and inhuman mob had massacred 
the unfortunate Princess de Lamballe, they had the wanton 
barbarity to carry the still warm and bleeding head raised 
upon a pike, and present it before the windows of the 
Temple, in order to insult and agonise the feelings of the 
unhappy royal family. 



page 151, line 2. 

A vision sends to put such thoughts to flight. 

Many instances may be found in the holy scriptures 
of the Almighty having sent his angel to warn people from 
the evil intentions which had entered their hearts, upon 
which they have repented of their rebellions designs, and 
turning to the Lord their God, have acknowledged his 
wisdom and goodness, and with the most sincere peni- 
tence and contrition,, implored his forgiveness for the 
sin conceived in their hearts : and if they who in moments 
of despondency, in which earthly misery, real or imagi- 
nary, has involved them, are tempted to listen to the 
suggestions of the Tempter when he whispers, that man 



198 



has a right over his own life, and consequently that of 
terminating it. when he can no longer enjoy it, on his 
own terms ; would turn from the voice of the arch-de- 
ceiver, and seek the truth of the important and weighty 
question in that Sacred Book, which clearly shews that 
the " wisdom of the world is foolishness with God," they 
would as certainly forsake their diabolic and heinous 
intention, as if a legion of angels had been sent to turn 
them from the imagination of a deed so atrocions, so 
revolting, so rebellious against the Most High, as the 
dark and fiend-like sin of self-murder. 



END OF THE N< 



H. Bryer, Printer, 
Bridge-street, Blackfriars, London. 



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